


We’ll Never Let You Go

by DetroitBabe



Category: Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency (TV 2016)
Genre: CIA angst, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, I’m jumping between time frames and POVs and genres like crazy, Project Blackwing (Dirk Gently), and i promise it all eventually connects, but also a lot of retrospective stuff, but that’s okay because the show does that too, post-finale screaming, right??
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-17
Updated: 2017-05-11
Packaged: 2018-09-25 03:27:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 9
Words: 26,718
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9800762
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DetroitBabe/pseuds/DetroitBabe
Summary: Some people like to divide time neatly into past, present and future. But when you have time-traveled on at least two non-consecutive occasions, such distinctions might begin to blur; and when your past crashes uninvited into your present, just as you set out for your future, they just don’t apply anymore.





	1. About suffering they were never wrong

**Author's Note:**

> I started writing this right after the finale (and yes, it took me this long to steer it towards completion and muster up the courage to finally post my writing publicly), so at some points it might diverge from the freshest theories or Max Landis’ tweets, but there’s only as much as I am willing to alter, so sod it, this is what you get. This chapter is mostly dialogue, partially action.

_You wouldn't believe it. Things, they... They double up. They parallel. Everything is chaos, but it... It's synchronized._

_It's like there's always something ready to mirror itself, life... endlessly turning inward._

 

As the events unfold, they do so at once, synchronized; the pattern repeating, elegant in its symmetry.

He cannot see it; but, in a way, he can feel it, like a knot in your stomach when you’re nervous, when you know that something big and important is going to happen, just without the knowing part – a hunch without an explanation or any apparent reason. It seems to mean nothing. It could mean anything. It usually means trouble. It does not, in any case, feel like a revelation. There is no deeper understanding, no single blessed moment when everything is suddenly crystal clear, no cosmic wisdom and no angels singing. Just a glimpse of a pattern in the chaos, but the pattern doesn’t make sense. At least not to him. Farah frowns as Dirk’s lopsided grin fades all too quickly.

“Farah, would you... excuse me for a moment?” he swallows and peers into the distance over her shoulder, a troubled look on his face. “Just… a moment.” He flashes her another smile, but this time it seems forced; and he lingers awkwardly for a second, in the middle of getting up. What eventually propels him forward into what, given his experiences so far, is probably another disaster, is probably the force of this strange routine, stronger than his sense of self-preservation. Dirk gets into trouble out of habit, like a recovering alcoholic popping out for one after a particularly mind-numbingly boring AA meeting, before realizing the consequences; the universe, to expand that metaphor, being his mate, patting him heartily on the back and steering him towards the pub, friendly reassuring that one pint can do no harm.

With more resignation than decisiveness, he finally hauls himself up and strides out of the café. By now his hands are shaking, but he still has no idea why. Looking around, he almost misses the piece of paper under his feet.

“Lux DuJour Tribute Show,” says the leaflet. “We’ll never let you go.”

Well, that sounds unnecessarily ominous, he thinks, and that’s also when something clicks in his head: quiet footsteps behind his back, a dark shape in the corner of his eye, a sense of unwanted, lurking presence; the tell-tale signs of being not-so-expertly followed. He turns around to face the man, who gives him a half-smile and a mocking salute. The same man who, a couple of days ago, tackled him to the floor on the staircase of Todd’s apartment building. The man from the CIA.

 _We’ll never let you go_.

“Not now,” he moans. Not now, now that things were looking up for a change…

 

 _Something’s wrong_ , says a tiny voice in Farah’s head. The paranoid one. She stares at the check intently, doing another mental tally of all the sandwiches and milkshakes and chocolate sundaes consumed this afternoon. _Not with that, silly_ , chastises her Little Miss Paranoia. _With Dirk_. He wouldn’t just run away to avoid paying, would he? She was still getting used to the quirks of her idiosyncratic new friend, and so far, the only sure thing about Dirk Gently seemed to be that she can’t be sure of anything; but that’s not his style. Getting in trouble, on the other hand… Cursing under her breath, she runs out onto a now empty street – well, not empty exactly, but distinctly devoid of crazy detectives. Others than her, that is. The voice in her head gets louder now: _you lost him, dammit, you lost him, something’s wrong, you screwed up again, now that things were looking up for a change_ …

 

It’s like picking up a scent, only not with your nose. It’s more like a spark right inside their brains, and it transforms them in an instant, and they are like bloodhounds smelling prey, ears pricking, nostrils flaring, even barking and howling, and you know that somewhere out there, shit’s going down. Delicious. Maybe one day Amanda will be able to feel it herself, too; but right now, she doesn’t have to – it doesn’t take a psychic to notice something’s seriously wrong. Vogle, usually bursting with energy, all goofy faces and manic laughter, goes quiet. The youngest of the Rowdies suddenly looks like a child who just realized he lost his mom in a mall. Martin tells them to get away so they leg it, they run for dear life, away from the smoke and the noise, coming like a thunderstorm from beyond the horizon, just when things were looking up for a change.

 

As they come from around a sharp turn, Bart slams the brake instinctively, and the car jolts forward and skids, tyres screeching. It takes them a moment to take it all in – the row of soldiers and heavy vehicles blocking the road. Ken glances at Bart and for the first time he sees her being afraid. Not out-of-her-mind screaming-her-head-off panicking like she was when that chick who was with Dirk stabbed her in the leg; more like a petrified kid, curled up under her blanket, telling herself that the monsters under the bed aren’t really there. She steps out of the car nonetheless, and for a moment smiles, that crazy, devil-may-care smile of hers, and picks up a rock, once again being herself, ready to take on whoever and whatever the universe puts in her way. But then a thought slowly forms in her mind, that she is not invulnerable anymore, that perhaps she can be hurt not only literally, but also in ways she cannot yet put into words, and her face falls. Just when things were looking up…

 

Todd drops to the floor, barely managing to register what’s going on before the searing pain blots out all his thoughts. It’s so real, the scorching heat, the fire eating away at his hands, the sickening stench of burning flesh. Some distant part of his mind reflects upon the cruel irony of it all, but the rest is just screaming. Amanda’s still on the phone, shouting, but he cannot hear her over his own voice; two noises merging into one, _just when_ …

The pattern breaks up, each piece spiralling outwards, until they converge again, sometime.

 

* * *

 

Amanda doubles up and leans against a tree, gasping for air, and motioning at Vogle to stop.

“I really… can’t run… anymore,” she breathes. “Seriously.” She’s still holding her phone – hasn’t lost it, thank God – and she frantically dials another number.

Somewhere else, Farah jumps up as her phone rings. “Amanda?”

“Farah! Farah, oh God, are you – are you with Todd?”

“Yes. No. I mean, he went to the bathroom, and I’m outside looking for – hold on, are you okay over there?” she asks the girl panting heavily into her ear.

“No. No, we are not. They – someone – came at us and me and Vogle ran, and I called Todd, and he started screaming –”

“Wait, wait. Slow down.” Farah pinches the bridge of her nose and takes a deep breath. “I’ll go check on Todd and give him a lift home, can you meet us there? You’re not hurt or anything?”

“No, I’m fine, I – I’ll see you there.” She hangs up and nods at Vogle. “We’re heading back into town. We’ll meet with my brother and Farah and Dirk, we’ll be fine. We should hitch a ride, or call a cab, or something –” she pauses, seeing the boy’s eyes widen. “What’s wrong?”

He is unused to speaking much, so he fidgets and stutters, struggling to express his thoughts. “N-no. We can’t. Dirk. They’re – they’ll be looking for him.”

“The people who came for us, the army or whatever, are looking for Dirk? Is that what you mean?” Vogle nods. “Listen, we have to go and see them. I – I think something’s happened to Todd. Maybe they’ve been attacked too. We can’t just leave them on their own. Besides, do you have a better idea?” She makes an effort to smile encouragingly, and tosses him a heavy-looking branch to replace his trusty baseball bat, forgotten in the hasty escape. “In case we need to kick some ass. Come on, let’s go.”

 

 _Thanks, universe_ , thinks Farah. _We just couldn’t take a break from all the disastrous events, could we_? Next door, in what used to be Dorian’s place, a well-paid renovation crew is working around the clock to turn the shabby apartment into a brand-new detective agency; which leaves Todd’s upstairs. Unfortunately, he’s still unsteady on his feet, so Farah needs to practically haul and drag him up there. He’s not a big guy (he is, in fact, a rather small and scrawny guy), but half-conscious he’s a dead weight, and when they reach first floor she can feel the uncomfortable prickle of sweat on her back. She puts a hand against the wall to steady herself, as he fumbles with the heavy lock that she insisted on installing after the incident with the possessed FBI agent. Inside at last, he drops onto a disembowelled sofa, sending a cloud of cotton wool-like filling into the air. Well, the place is a mess anyway; he should try to snatch some of those 4 million dollars to get it refurbished, or at least cleaned up…

“Are you feeling better now?” Farah asks, her voice shrill and her face creased with worry, despite all her efforts to regain composure. “Amanda will be here soon.”

“Good,” mutters Todd. “Where’s Dirk?”

Farah bites her lip. “Dirk’s gone,” she admits reluctantly.

“Gone?! What do you mean, gone?” he exclaims, sitting up abruptly.

“Well, he didn’t stop existing. Hopefully. He just got up and left suddenly, right after you went to the bathroom. Said he’d be back in a moment, he wasn’t, so I went outside to look for him, and there was no trace. Vanished into thin air. And then Amanda called to say she couldn’t reach you, I came back in, and the rest you know. Call him, maybe?”

“Yeah,” he moans, and reaches for his mobile. “Well, whatever he’s doing, or investigating, or whatever, screw this. I’m not running after him. I need a break. And I’m not his mother. Or his ward.”

Somewhere else, sharp ringing breaks the silence. The soldier bends over the lying man and rummages through his pockets until he finds the phone, drops it to the floor and smashes it with the butt of his gun. The man stirs, but doesn’t quite come around yet.

 

The loud knocking makes Farah jump. _Get a grip_ , she mutters to herself angrily, as she draws her pistol and moves in to look through the peephole. She sighs with relief and yanks the door open.

“Amanda, thank God, you made it!”

“Yeah, Vogle stole a car,” she replies, gesturing at the vaguely familiar young bloke behind her, and looking over Farah’s shoulder.

“Todd! Todd, you’re alright!” She runs up to embrace him, while Vogle warily steps inside.

“Yeah, I’m – I’m sorry, sis. Are you alright? When you called –”

“Fuck, no,” she retorts with her usual bluntness, sitting down on the remnants of a coffee table. “Look, I told you how, a couple of days ago, I first went with the Rowdy Three, and we were followed by two guys, right? Military guys. I don’t know what they wanted from us, but the boys didn’t take it well. A fight broke off, one of these dudes panicked and pulled a gun on me, so I ran away. And now they came back. Except there were, like, way more of them. Me and Vogle got away, but the others… I don’t know. And we think they might be after Dirk too. Something to do with the psychic stuff, you know.” Vogle nods furiously and grunts something unintelligible. Todd and Farah exchange glances.

“Aw, shit,” he moans again.

“What, what happened? And what was that with the screaming?” Amanda asks, looking up at Todd.

“Oh, um…”

“When I tried to call you, you started screaming. What was that about?”

Everyone turns to look at him, and it’s as if the room has suddenly become smaller. If Todd was standing up, he would probably back off; but reclining on a sofa, his options are somewhat limited, so he just pushes himself into the cushions, trying to put as much distance as possible between himself and the weirdo currently sniffing the air around him and licking his lips like the Big Bad Wolf ready to pounce and swallow him whole.

“W-What the hell, man?!” He tries to shoo Vogle away, who in turn giggles like an idiot. “Amanda, can you tell him to get off me?” But his sister just peers at the two of them inquisitively.

“Todd, is there something you’re not telling me? Again?”

Oh, great, thinks Todd. This is just great. Vogle is barking him up like a deranged puppy, Amanda is squinting at him with suspicion, and Farah, who after all has just driven him trashing around screaming for no apparent reason through half of Seattle, looks like she’s putting the two and two together as well, and it only further confirms what he was already so terribly, dreadfully sure of.

“I had a… a pararibulitis attack earlier today. I think.”

“You think?” Amanda splutters, rising her eyebrows in disbelief. “Do you think it’s –”

“Well, I wouldn’t know, would I, eh?” he smiles feebly, immediately feeling his ears burn (only figuratively this time) with embarrassment. “I mean…”

“I know what you mean, you idiot,” she says, her voice hitting a surprisingly soothing tone. “Was it bad?”

“I… thought my hands were on fire. I kinda realized what was going on, but… it felt so real. And I could see it, too. Gosh, it…”

“Sucks, doesn’t it?” sighs Amanda.

“Yeah.”

“Welcome to my world,” she says, getting up to pat his shoulder, half-reassuringly, half-mockingly. It’s only now, with the most burning questions answered, that she realizes that something – or rather someone – is amiss. And with what Vogle has said earlier, it doesn’t bode well.

“Hey, where’s Dirk?” she asks apprehensively.

“He’s gone,” says Farah for the second time this day.

“Shit, they’ve got him already, then.”

Todd shakes his head. “We don’t know that for a fact, but… Jesus, you really think so?”

“Stop right there,” Farah interrupts him. “Who exactly are you talking about, again? Does everyone know everything besides me?”

“Don’t ask me,” Amanda replies. “Like I said, I only saw two of them last week. They didn’t introduce themselves.”

“They’re from Project Blackwing,” Todd nods with a sigh. “If they even are the same guys. The guys that Dirk has mentioned. Vaguely. He said something about the CIA, but I didn’t even register it back then, I mean – it’s Dirk. He’s sometimes just… saying stuff, right? But then I kept nagging him about the whole… psychic stuff, and he said that he’d been with them as a child, or something? He wouldn’t say anything more, and I let it drop, and then it kinda… slipped my mind, with all the stuff that’s been happening later…”

“Damn, I should’ve realized!” Farah mutters angrily, more to herself than to anyone else. “When I was still locked up upstairs, and suddenly that bullet came through the floor and killed that creep, I knew… I knew it was military. But did I think about it later? When Amanda told me about the guys who attacked her? Did I make the connection? No, I just went ahead with everything else that’s been going on, and I completely forgot, and all this time, they were tailing us. How could I be so careless?!”

“Farah, it’s not your fault,” Todd says, grabbing her by the shoulders and looking her directly in the eye. “Okay? We were trying to save Lydia. A – a crazy time traveller and those cultist wackos and the whole universe was trying to screw us over, and you kept saving our asses. Don’t blame yourself.”

“So, what are we going to do?” Amanda asks, bringing their minds back to the matter at hand. “I mean, we can’t just fight the entire U.S. army or CIA or whatever. Or can we? Are we going to?” She adds after a brief pause, a tad too enthusiastically.

“This is bigger than before. What can we even do?”

“We need a plan,” Farah states, and begins pacing around the room. “First, we pool our knowledge. Amanda, Todd, you’ve already shared with us your versions of the story; now, V-Vogle, yes? Vogle, what can you tell us? Anything that could help us.” Her voice is still shaky, but simply talking as if she knew what she’s doing, she’s beginning to feel more in control, even if they don’t have a scrap of an actual plan yet.

“I wasn’t there long,” Vogle says, turning his attention from Todd (the air around him still crackling with this strange, but oh so delicious energy) to Farah (the anger and anxiety and grim determination, emotions so thick they are palpable). “They found me on the streets and took me to… this place. And they put me with the others, Martin and Cross and Gripps. And they were like me! I – I never knew there were others like me! And we – we were – they –” he falters and snivels. “But we broke out, boom! And it all went crazy! They started shoutin’ and shootin’ the place up! But we beat them up, stomped their butts and ate them up! And then Martin said we had to get away, and Cross got a car and we got off, and…”

“Okay, okay,” Farah interrupts his rambled narrative. “Do you have any details? Like, where was that, exactly?”

“I’m not sure, but it was in the… desert. Like, I don’t know…”

“Nevada?” suggests Todd. Vogle shrugs. “Like, like – Area 51?”

“Area 51? Seriously?!” Amanda raises her eyebrows in disbelief. “No, seriously, is this stuff for real?”

“Let’s… let’s put that aside for now,” says Farah, determined to be the voice of reason in the conversation going haywire. “What were you doing there? You and the… others. The – the thing you do, with the blue light and all… does Dirk do that too?”

“No, he ain’t one of us,” retorts Vogle, shaking his head. “But he was there. We ate him too,” he adds, all very satisfied with himself. Farah sighs with resignation, concluding she probably won’t get anything more coherent out of anyone. Damn, this is gonna be hard…

 

* * *

 

“Bye, Ken.”

The truth is, he ran away. Of course, he protested when Bart told him to leave her. He protested because he cared about her, but also because there was a tank and about two dozen soldiers training their guns on him and a heavy-duty vehicle behind him. Still under her unyielding stare and meaningful nods (“ _go on_ ,” she mouths at him) he eventually shifted slowly to the driver seat (oh God, are they going to shoot him if he moves?), and then it all happened in a flash: she suddenly swirled and hurled the stone at the car behind them and the man inside leapt out, and someone took a shot but she ducked and dodged it and it ricocheted off the cab’s roof and hit the man and she threw herself onto them and all hell broke loose. Momentarily forgotten, Ken revved the engine and reversed into the roadside, turned around and drove away, telling himself that she will be alright, that she cannot be hurt, that he trusts her and that the universe will sort everything out, and that everything that’s happening is happening for a reason and there is nothing he can do about it… So, he fled, not sure if it was fate or just cowardice leading him, and he could hear the gunfire behind him but he didn’t turn around and didn’t stop until he was far away and he couldn’t drive anymore because his vision blurred with tears. His palms curled into fists and he hit the dashboard so hard it hurt.

He realizes that he must have taken a wrong turn when he recognizes the skyline of Seattle, but he drives on, because it doesn’t matter anymore where he’s going, does it? He already got used to Bart either driving herself or telling him where to go, and after all it made sense, since unlike her he didn’t have a goal to reach. But now he doesn’t even know if she’s alive or dead, and he feels directionless, and oh, so guilty, and he’d maybe come looking for her if only he knew how and where, so really, why not Seattle again? For all he knows and cares, it could be New Mexico, what difference does it make? Maybe the universe didn’t want him to leave the city just yet. (Well, what has just happened seemed a bit excessive as a stop sign, but he’s still new at this whole stream of creation thing, so who knows.) He still has most of Bart’s dirty, sticky bundle of bank notes of unknown origin; it’s more than enough to pay for a motel room. He begins to drift off, but cannot sleep, clearly more anxious than exhausted.

How very appropriate of him. Anxiety and cautious paranoia was definitely the order of the day.


	2. A boy falling out of the sky

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hello naughty children, it's ~~flashback time~~ !
> 
> that just... deteriorated into sadness real quick.

_Everything_ is _connected. But only I can see it. I'm not psychic. But I am... something. When I was young,_

_I would get... intuitions about things,_ _little hunches about the way the universe worked._

_But they never... It was like reading in another language, like signs with symbols I didn't understand._

 

“Mum, is uncle Peter very mad at me?”

“Why… what have you done?”

“I just told aunt Elena that I don’t like uncle’s Peter lady friend.”

“His what?!”

“The lady he goes to the pub with every Friday. I see them walk past my window. I don’t like her. On their way back, she always laughs and talks loud and wakes me up. So, when I was staying at theirs, I told aunt Elena that I hope she doesn’t come when I’m there. And aunt Elena started asking me questions and then uncle Peter came back late, on his own, and they were talking loud and I couldn’t sleep anyway…”

(Private conversation, _circa_ 1991)

**Child saves a family of four from a deadly gas leak**

_Brentwood_. The Parsons family has barely escaped alive from the explosion that has destroyed their house last night. Confounded experts claim that it was an accident caused by a fault in the gas boiler and a subsequent fault in the electric installation, which has provided a spark that ignited the leaking gas. Luckily, the Parsons and their two children were woken up by their friend’s 6-year old son who was staying with them that night […]

“I’m just so happy he’s alive,” says the child’s mother. “And that Ellie and Josh and their kids are alive too. I am so sorry for what’s happened. But don’t say it’s our fault, okay? Because it isn’t. I’m sorry, Ellie. But whatever you might think, we had nothing to do with it.” After that odd statement […]

( _Herts & Essex Observer_, 28.07.1992)

“Oh, we’re grateful, alright? If he didn’t wake us up, we’d all be done for. But that little sod is just bad luck, you know? Hana, poor thing, had to go to a doctor in London, so I agreed to babysit for her. And look what happened. I’m not saying he did it, I mean he’s just a kid, but this… this ain’t the first time, you know? Elena and Peter divorced last month, there was a break-in into the Richardsons’ house... I dunno, maybe it’s a coincidence. But that boy’s trouble, mark my words.”

(Ellie Parsons, in conversation, 30.07.1992)

 “Honey, could you pass me the –”

“Sure.”

“Did you… _know_ this is what I wanted?”

“You were pointing at it, mum.”

“Oh. Right.”

(Private conversation, _circa_ 1995)

“Oh, what were you doing there, dear?”

“I was looking for your missing dog, Mrs. Chaudhuri.”

“I don’t have a dog, dear. One of my cats went missing, yes – but no dog, dear.”

“Yes, the cat that thought it was a dog, was hanging out with dogs and all. They must’ve unburied Mr. Wadworth and Bailey shot them. Your dog – your cat, that is – too. I’m sorry.”

“How do you know all that, dear?”

(Private conversation, 12.01.1996)

**A 10-year old makes a grisly discovery**

Horrible news has shaken the small community of Brentwood, Essex. A dead body, already identified as one of the teachers from the local boarding school, was found buried in the backyard of Gregory Bailey’s house. The police are investigating Mr. Bailey’s involvement.

The grim discovery was made by a 10-year old schoolboy, who claimed to have wandered into Mr. Bailey’s property in search of his neighbour’s missing dog […]

(BBC Radio News, 13.01.1996)

“…And now a murder, of all things! And you should now, his mother, she’s, you know, a bit… not right in the head, she is. I tell you, mister, you should look into this…”

(Ellie Parsons, in conversation, 14.01.1996)

 

* * *

 

The first thing that crosses Svlad’s mind as he opens the door is: _trouble_.

He is not a misbehaving child, but he has an uncanny knack for being in all the wrong places at all the wrong times, and so he knows that tell-tale mixture of worry, annoyance and exasperation on his mother’s face so well. Also, he’s late for dinner.

But he knows that there’s more to it even before he gets a good look at the two men sitting at the dinner table; because what he first sees are mum’s hands, fidgeting with her kitchen apron, and what he first hears are her words, muttered in a language that the visitors don’t understand. He takes it all in as the three grown-ups turn to stare at him. Mum, afraid and confused, but desperately trying to muster up some courage and confidence. The first stranger, dressed in a black suit, an untouched cup of tea before him. He seems tense, and eyes everyone up with suspicion, before eventually setting his gaze on Svlad – a piercing, scrutinizing gaze that sends a shiver down the boy’s spine. And his companion, a stocky, moustachioed man, at first glance a paternal figure, but with a sharp edge underneath all that apparent kindness, and exuding the air of authority. He’s wearing some foreign army uniform, and that explains mum’s apprehension, which by now Svlad feels as well. He was born in England, never having experiencing the tensions and conflicts tearing apart their homeland; but he understands enough from the overheard snippets of news on the radio or mum’s conversations with their neighbours, the adults with tired eyes and thick Eastern European accents. He doesn’t like to play soldiers with the other boys.

As he comes in, mum leans in and squeezes his shoulder feebly. “Hello, honey. This is, erm, major Riggins. Don’t worry, he just wants to talk to you.”

“In private, if you don’t mind,” Riggins chips in, apologetically yet firmly. Mum nods and scuttles out of the kitchen. Svlad slowly walks up to the table and sits down, facing the men. He doesn’t say a word.

“Hello, Svlad,” says Riggins with a smile. To the boy’s surprise, he pronounces the name perfectly – but his accent is more like that of Jason, Svlad’s American classmate. Oh yes, there is a little US flag pin on the Black Suit’s lapel, and then there are the insignia on Riggins’ uniform; definitely American, he observes with calm detachment. He snaps back into focus when Riggins speaks again.

“Don’t be afraid. We’re just going to have a little chat. You see,” he lowers his voice and leans in conspiratorially, as if he was going to reveal a secret, “we think you’re very –”

“I’m not special,” Svlad interrupts, immediately realising he’s made a grave mistake, but it’s too late to go back. “No, I mean – you’re – you’re wrong. I can’t…” he stutters, his chin trembling. Black Suit breathes in sharply, and Riggins screws up his eyes, studying closely the boy who now, despite himself, begins to cry.

 

She can feel the tears welling up in her eyes. She can understand every word the man says, but she cannot comprehend the meaning; even though, deep down, she always knew this will happen. Well, maybe not _this_ exactly, but something like it.

Funny thing is, she cannot recall when or how it all started. You would think you wouldn’t have missed your child having supernatural powers, but the truth is, the most extraordinary things in life can sometimes go unnoticed. And it wasn’t like he would _do_ things, not exactly. In the beginning, he’d just have his moods, but who doesn’t? Then, yes, he would get into trouble, but again, which little boy doesn’t? He wasn’t naughty, oh no – and yet he would more and more often turn up in places he shouldn’t be, or say things he wasn’t supposed to know. It only got worse since he went to school, getting to know more people. To the other kids, he was always an outsider – a strange boy with a funny name and a faraway look in his eyes, too delicate to fight and rarely keen to play their games; and despite his usually cheerful, if somewhat dreamy demeanour he would struggle to make friends. To the teachers, he was a bit of a problem; a little behind the rest of the class, but not lazy or stupid, just generally disinterested in anything else than his coming and going random fixations. Head in the clouds, they’d say. Some would suggest a visit to a child psychologist, but Hana would always steadfastly refuse. _My boy is perfectly normal_ , she kept saying, trying to convince herself or the school counsellor who had a go and ended up with a bit of a breakdown.

And things would happen around him, too, as if he was a magnet for all accidents big and small. At first, she’d just think him unlucky, unintentionally getting into all those scrapes, and purely by coincidence surrounded by unfortunate people. But as time passed by, she couldn’t shake the feeling that there’s something wrong with her son himself. Of course, like every good mother in the world she would deny it, and love him unswervingly; but she would become more and more unhinged. With every strange thing that he’d say. With every disaster that he’d offhandedly predict. With each of her sentences that he’d finish for her. With every time when he’d be sporting a black eye for upsetting one of his mates. With every time when he’d seem to be reading her mind.

And now those two strange men came into their life and confirmed her worst fears.

They want to take him someplace in America. To help him, they say, and protect him (and protect her from him, they seem to imply). She can’t bring herself to refuse, because she is so scared (of them? Or of her own child?), and she hates herself for that. It’s only temporary anyway, they say. Not that different than sending him to a boarding school. Why then she has this nagging suspicion that she won’t see him again? When the men leave, with a promise they’ll come back tomorrow, she feels as if she has already lost him forever. She slides down to the floor, deflated, onto her knees, weeping. Svlad embraces her awkwardly, and she squeezes him tight, rocking back and forth. He’s afraid too, but he tells himself it’s meant to be; he cries more for her sake. Dad has passed away a couple of years ago, and now her only son is being taken away, and she will be left alone; with her nerves already frayed it’s gonna be a terrible blow, and he knows that too.

 

He doesn’t say a word, and he is determined not to cry. When they board the plane, Black Suit (Vince, he says his name is) tries to make it sound like an adventure, and begins to babble nervously in a futile attempt to cheer the boy up, until Riggins silences him with a scathing look, and takes his turn.

“Hello.” No reply.

“You know, I just realized, we haven’t been introduced properly. My name is Scott. You can call me that, none of this “sir” nonsense. Just Scott, okay? Your uncle Scott,” he continues jovially, and puts his arm around Svlad, who squirms, trying to shrug him off.

“You’re not my uncle,” he grumbles.

“Well – no, but – listen,” says Riggins, suddenly serious. “You said yesterday that you weren’t special, but I know it’s not true. And you know that, too. You’re scared and confused, I understand that, but trust me. I don’t mean to hurt you. I want to help you. The things you know, the things you see – imagine what you could do…” he sounds desperate now, staring into the boy’s face, looking for any signs of understanding, for common ground. “I’ll make you fly, son.” There is a zeal in his eyes that makes Svlad shudder. He turns his head away.

Last night, when they’ve been asking their questions, more and more, until he thought they’d never stop, and after they finally left, and mum started to cry, and he cried too, and then they both went to their beds, but not to sleep, because neither of them could sleep, so he left his room and crawled into mum’s bed, as he hasn’t done in ages because he was a big boy now, and they just were lying there for a while, in silence, and then they got up and packed his things, and then had tea and cookies, and mum turned the radio on, and they probably woke all the neighbours up but they didn’t care, they laughed and cried and said “I love you” a lot until the dawn broke – then he went through all the emotions. The pain, a few little moments of joy, the sadness, the anxiety. Now he just feels exhausted, and so he dozes off, curled up in his seat.

“I’ll make you fly, son,” Riggins repeats, brushing off a loose strand of dark brown/auburn hair from the boy’s eyes. “I’ll make you fly.” He sighs, thinking of the long journey that has only just begun, yet still oddly content, and looks out of the porthole. Beneath and above them there is a vast expanse of blue, dotted with clouds.

 

* * *

 

The walls of the room are a dirty, nondescript pastel. The furnishings are simple, as you would expect from a military base – a single bed with a metal frame, a desk with a chair, a small wardrobe. A window looks out onto the desert; it’s barred, but if you close the heavy, yellowish curtains you can almost forget about it. One door leads into a small bathroom, the other onto the corridor; it closes behind him, and he is left alone. He goes through the motions mechanically; not bothering with a wash or brushing his teeth, he just takes a fresh T-shirt from his bag, changes and goes to bed, almost immediately falling into a restless sleep. There is nothing else to do.

In the morning, he wakes up confused, the events of the previous day unreal like a dream, the place still unfamiliar. While he’s in the bathroom, he can hear someone enter and walk around the room; it turns out to be one of the soldiers, with breakfast. The sight of the huge, armed man holding a lunch tray is so ridiculous it makes Svlad laugh. The soldier seems uneasy, which looks even funnier. He puts the tray down on the table and strides out stiffly. Riggins comes in not long after that, accompanied by another man – not Vince, someone else; a tall, balding man in a shiny black uniform, chest full of medals, face hardened and grave. He eyes Svlad up sceptically, a faint twitch in the corner of his mouth betraying a hint of amusement. General Kinsey is not sure what he has expected, but his first impression is that the boy doesn’t look like much: a lanky, frail-looking lad with a deer-in-the-headlights expression.

“This is him?” he asks, rising his eyebrows. “Your… _Project Icarus_?”

 If Riggins notices Kinsey’s contempt, he chooses to ignore it. “Yes,” he replies with an enthusiastic nod. “Svlad Cjelli.”

“Humph.” The general doesn’t even try to hide his scornful doubt and disappointment. “Well, major, show me what you got. Prove to me your little pet project is not a waste of time and money.”

Riggins breathes deeply and catches eye contact with Svlad. _Please_ , help me here, son, he thinks. Let’s give him what he wants. Svlad just shrugs. What happens next is a repeat of that first interview back in the Cjellis’ house, only it takes even longer this time, the incessant tasks and tests. Riggins is clearly desperate to make the most out of it, and he seems to succeed; by the end Kinsey cuts in with his own questions, and appears satisfied with the response. They some again the next day, and the next, and Svlad begins to deliberately give wrong answers or just avoid answering altogether, thinking that maybe if he doesn’t do what they want, they’ll have no use for him and will just let him go; but it’s too late, the general is already convinced of the boy’s, as he puts it, “potential”, and sees through his futile attempts to play dumb.

Unlike Riggins, Kinsey is not a believer, and he doesn’t quite share the major’s enthusiasm; that’s why he lets him run the project, despite being formally in charge. Of course, he cannot deny that the results so far have been promising, and the growing group of subjects might one day prove really useful; after all, he would have never let this go so far if it had been otherwise. But that’s all there is in it to him: usefulness. He doesn’t have Riggins’ almost religious devotion to the project, nor his attempted fatherly approach to the subjects; to him, they are little more than new piece of equipment. Sophisticated, deadly, powerful, but mere things nonetheless. But Riggins insists on accommodating them, on providing them with nice quarters that would feel like a home from home (that can be done, unless a subject proves to be too destructive; in which case, it’s just not worth the cost), on talking with them day and night instead of just giving them orders (if he’s ready to pull an all-nighter to make them feel welcome, that’s his business), on treating them like _children_. If only they were – oh, but Kinsey has seen what some of them are capable of… Well, as long as he gets the results, he doesn’t concern himself with the means; spoon-feed them sugar or put a gun to their heads, he doesn’t care.

He only comes in for the initial assessment of every new subject, gives them a few pointers, and then only appears if he needs something. That’s fine with Riggins – he detests the general’s dismissive attitude. When he came forward with the idea, when he set out to find these people, it wasn’t to weaponize or utilize them; at least not solely. It pained him to see them treated as commodities. But the truth is, as much as he’s been telling himself that they’re as human as anyone, they are something else to him, too. They’re unknowing figures, symbols in a code to be broken so that he can finally understand _everything_. He understands nothing yet, but he lives on hope.

Svlad isn’t nowhere near content with the situation, but he seems almost at peace as he quietly settles into his new everyday routine; at the same time Hana decides she cannot go through her old everyday routine anymore. Her mind, so to speak, has been preparing to jump ship for some time now; and as her sanity packs a suitcase and waves her goodbye, and leaves in a bit of a hurry, she doesn’t even take her coat and handbag with her, she just walks out. Out of her house, out of her life. She walks past the people hurrying to work and the children going to school, their laughter, grumbling and shouting sending a pang through her heart as among their chit-chat she doesn’t find her son’s voice. She keeps walking mechanically, her stare fixed on something in the distance, without any intention of ever coming back.

Silly enough, it’s only on the third evening, after finally being left alone, that Svlad realizes that the door is not locked. He doesn’t have a plan, he doesn’t even think about it much, just acts on the instinct to escape, and tentatively steps out of the room. The door creaks, and upon hearing the noise one of the soldiers patrolling the corridor turns around sharply and trains his gun on Svlad. The boy yelps and backs away, his eyes widening in horror, and the soldier realizes his mistake; he levels the weapon down and smiles apologetically.

“Oh, sorry, kiddo,” he says. “Didn’t mean to startle you. But you shouldn’t be out here. Go back to your room,” he adds sternly. From a distance, somewhere around the corner, a muffled scream and a loud thud can be heard; the soldier grabs Svlad by his shirt and pushes him inside, locking the door behind him, and runs towards the noise. Whimpering, Svlad slides down onto the floor, hugging his knees tight, and is even further away from being content with the situation.

The walls of the room are light blue, he decides – like the sky, and if you squint, if you look at them through half-closed eyes, you can imagine you’re out there. Flying.


	3. Icarus, for instance

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter 2 got a little out of hand, so this is in fact kinda its second half. Again, it's very introspective, which is a fancy word for rambling internal monologues with minimal action. But I promise next time we'll go back to Actual Plot and to present time, so bear with me, pals.

_In the beginning, it was just an idea. I wanted… I wanted so badly to believe there was something bigger: a bigger pattern, a bigger meaning._

_I knew when I first met you, I’d found it. It was real. It was all real and you were proof._

 

Everything is always as it’s meant to be. That’s what he knows, that’s what he’s always known, and he still believes it with unwavering certainty, because that’s the only way his world makes any sort of sense to him, and right now, that’s what he needs more than ever – for things to make sense. And they do, of course, in their own manner; so why does it all feel so _wrong_?

 

* * *

 

It started off a bit silly. _What number am I thinking of? Look at the photo. What can you tell me about that person?_ Rorschach tests. _Do you ever have prophetic dreams? Focus on that pencil. Can you move it without touching it?_ Logic puzzles. Card tricks. _Can you sense anything about what’s going on in the other room? What do I have in my pockets? Have you ever wished something would happen and it happened?_ (That’s a stupid one. If he could have his wishes come true, he wouldn’t be sitting here.) And so on, and so on. Vince keeps asking him if he feels the urge to kill someone. (“If we have another assassin on our hands, I’m gonna ask to be transferred to a different unit,” he mutters under his breath so that Riggins can’t hear him. “I’m gonna transfer you to Project Cain if you don’t shut up,” Riggins mutters back.)

But that was just, as they said, “initial assessment”. To figure out what to do with him next. It doesn’t look very promising – there are others here who can do so much more. There are people here who can move small objects with nothing but the force of their will, or those who can read minds more easily than they can read a book, or some who can taste the live energy coursing through your body. There is someone who claims to be seeing glimpses of the future. He cannot do any of that; he is absolutely useless at most of the stuff, with the odd exception of palmistry. But then, every time they are just about to give up on him, he would say something, or he would appear to have made something happen, and so it starts all over again.

For Riggins, it’s a bit of a personal quest. He doesn’t believe in God, but he does believe in _something_. Call it what you like – a power, fate, a bigger meaning, the flow of the universe. He has seen some strange things in his life, some inexplicable, some curious coincidences, and a fair portion of your normal, mundane, horrible deaths or disasters. Things that make you desperately want to believe that there is a deeper meaning of life, a hidden pattern to everything. Most of the people who cannot live with the idea of senseless, chaotic world find their answers in all sorts of religions and philosophies; but there are also those who seek a more concrete proof. They are not content with the abstract concepts and vague promises. They believe in science, and in mankind’s triumph over nature; they want to solve the mystery for themselves. This is why Project Blackwing was founded. And if you think that he must’ve been crazy to propose it to the US government, think what the response says about the US government; because they actually agreed to fund it, probably hoping to create a breed of super soldiers, capable of telekinetically stopping their enemies’ hearts or predicting the outcomes of the battles to come. But none of that is Riggins’ concern. He only wants to break the code; see the pattern. And right now, Project Icarus is his biggest hope yet.

 

There was a special agent hunting down a man with ties to an international criminal organization. A man who, quite inexplicably, instead of hiding on some Caribbean beach like every decent international criminal, has taken to hiding in the English countryside, posing as a maths teacher in the local boarding school. And one night, he was shot for trespassing on some batty old farmer’s property – an event that everyone found rather shocking, as it tends to happen more often on American than English soil. Next in the chain of extraordinary circumstances, the man’s body was discovered, seemingly by complete coincidence, by a boy who, according to his neighbours, was “something strange”. The agent would pay no attention to the inane village gossip, were it not for the fact that, as he realized, during his stay in the town he has bumped into the boy every day, at five o’clock sharp, despite it occurring in a completely different place every time. Upon realizing this, the agent, baffled out of his mind, got drunk, called his old colleague and complained about the confounding case, disclosing all its details. This led to the agent being promptly fired, and his old colleague Vince to persuading his superiors to look into it; which is, in brief, the story of how Vince and Riggins found themselves questioning the boy, and feeling rather strange themselves.

“It’s like everything is… connected. To everything. To me. I don’t mean it, but it happens,” he explains. And at this instance, Riggins’ mind performs the mental equivalent of adjusting a tinfoil hat perched on its head, fishing out a handful of newspaper clippings on unexplained phenomena, sticking them to a wall, and connecting them with drawing pins and pieces of string with a loud, triumphant “A-ha!”.

He has been Blackwing’s chief of operations for almost a decade now. It has come a long way, and a lot has changed over the years. He has travelled all over the world, seeking out, taking in, and cataloguing (a dreadful, dehumanizing word; Riggins, in contrary to some of his colleagues involved with the project, always thought of them as actual human beings, and God, it sometimes did not feel right) those individuals (most of them children, as it was decided they would be more… malleable subjects). The existence (and potential usefulness) of people gifted with psychic abilities wasn’t, of course, a new idea, and neither was Project Blackwing the first of its kind; and with all the previous endeavours in this field failing without exceptions, Riggins wasn’t quite sure why the CIA had decided to go along with it. There were days when he had doubts himself. After all, the ebb and flow of the universe is not exactly something you can see and measure. Some can sense it, and sometimes Riggins wishes he was one of them – but then, says a voice in his head that, for the lack of better word, we shall call conscience, he would be the one kidnapped and experimented on by the government. They tend to more or less consciously move along those lines; surf the ripples in the fabric of reality, instead of just being tossed around blind like most people. Their movements can be traced; they stand out if you know what to look for. Svlad Cjelli didn’t stand out and was only traced by coincidence, but, as Riggins argued, that was exactly the point. Apparent coincidence that was not coincidence at all. Maybe he was losing it, but the boy seemed to understand.

 

“I don’t understand,” says Svlad.

“I want you to describe it to me,” Riggins tries to explain. “The connections. How you see them. Is it like – is it like visions, or –”

“No,” the boy replies. “I told you. I just… People always talk about stuff to me, and it always means something, and then I will say something and it will mean something too, but I don’t always understand. I don’t mean to, but I always kinda go where I feel like going and suddenly stuff just happens and people talk to me as if it was my fault. And I don’t understand. But nothing… nothing is…” he stutters, struggling to express his thoughts. “Nothing is ever… not connected to something else. It all happens at once and I don’t know why, but I feel like if it happens, it…”

“It is meant to happen?”

“Yes. Like the connection is already there.”

“But you can’t see it before it happens?”

“No.”

“But it doesn’t happen to everyone else, does it? Surely you must have some… intuition, or premonition, to follow the connections. Not everyone does, you know.”

“What’s ‘premonition’?”

“A hunch, a feeling that something’s going to happen.”

“I… I sometimes feel that the connection is there. But I don’t know what it means, so I have to follow it to see where it’s going. It’s often trouble, though, so I always try to ignore it first, but I always end up there anyway.”

 

* * *

 

It’s not that different from school, really, in that it’s a mind-numbing daily routine of being assigned tasks he can’t be bothered to complete but has to, and being asked stupid questions he has no interest in answering, and that, as it is with every child and school, he fundamentally hates it. And it’s still better than afternoon maths classes with Mr. Wadworth. It would be, all in all, not so bad, if only he could go out (the fenced patch of that sandy wasteland surrounding the complex doesn’t count), and call mum (they wouldn’t let him and they wouldn’t tell him why), and just talk to someone else than Riggins, the two doctors, Díaz and Ximénez, and the handful of soldiers and agents, or “supervisors”, as they call themselves (although Carl is nice, and always brings him comics to read or asks him about England, which Svlad doesn’t like that much because it reminds him of mum and home, but then if he gets sad Carl gives him a hug, which is something no one else ever does), he knows there are others…

“Can I see the others?” he asks.

“I’ll… see what I can do,” says Carl. That seems to cheer the boy up.

“What are the others like?”

“They’re, uh… Some are like you. Some are… not,” Carl replies vaguely, scratching the fresh, pink scar over his right eye.

 

Maybe Carl managed to pull some strings, or maybe someone just decided it’s time, but a couple of days later he is led to a room he hasn’t seen before, and he’s so ridiculously excited. The new room is bigger than his, almost as big as the lab, and prettier than both. The walls are blue, really blue, with clouds painted on, there are colourful curtains drawn shut as always and on the wall one of these big mirrors that are actually a window on the other side, and a big table and a cupboard full of books and toys, and a nice carpet, and there is another boy in there, and Svlad beams at Carl who smiles back and shuts the door behind him. He waves at the other boy and says hello, but the boy doesn’t reply; instead, he comes up to the mirror-window, fishes in his trouser pocket, takes out a teaspoon and looks at it with such intensity that the spoon apparently tries to hang its head up in shame and wriggle out of his hand, ending curled up in a bizarre shape. He then screws up his eyes shut and the spoon slowly unfolds. The boy repeats the whole trick again and again, and Svlad watches him for a while but then decides it’s not the socializing he has hoped for, so he can just as well check out the cupboard and maybe find a something to read that’s not the book he brought from home or Carl’s few issues of a Superman comic. He jumps up, startled, as a skinny teenager suddenly stands behind him (where were they hiding?) and wrenches the book he’s picked out of his hands. The kid goes to the last page, glances at the cover, skims through the thing, back to the end, and announces:

 “The man in the blue mask is really Percival.”

“Wha- Oh, you spoiled it! You spoiled the mystery!”

“What mystery?” the kid asks, looking genuinely puzzled. “It’s not a mystery. They say it right here,” they explain in a patronising tone, showing Svlad the last page.

“But you’re not supposed to peek at the end! You have to read it in order, try to work it out yourself,” he retorts, hitting the same tone himself.

“Have you worked it out?”

“I was going to. But now you’ve ruined it.” The kid looks at him and shakes their head.

“Waste of time,” they say. “And suppose you’d get it wrong?  You’d get it wrong even though the answer is there. All you need to work out is where to look for it, not the answer itself. It’s ready and waiting. What’s your name?”

“I’m Svlad. And you?”

“Ias.”

“Ias? What sort of a name is that?” Svlad asks, frowning. “Is that a… boy or a girl name?” he adds after a pause and a closer yet fruitless look at the kid.

“It’s my name,” replies Ias. “I used to have a different one, but now it’s this. I’ll see you around, _Svlad_ ,” they say as they knock on the door and it opens, and they leave.

 

“We’re gonna solve a mystery, eh?” says Wilkinson as soon as he enters the room. Svlad breathes out with relief – this is fine. Tedious, often frustrating when he cannot find the answer, but exhilarating when he does and preferable over other kinds of tests. In the beginning, he’s been just making up stories, still hoping to get them to leave him alone; at first carefully (the elaborate nature of the task occupying his thoughts, a welcome distraction from reality), but as no one spotted a lie, he’d get braver, even cheeky, sometimes coming up with something utterly preposterous. But to his surprise they not only seemed to swallow it hook, line and sinker; they would turn to him with more questions, and with a kind of odd reverence. To his astonishment, he has found out that every one of his lies had come true. This has shocked him, and put him in a thoroughly miserable mood – his hopes of being returned home fluttered, trashed about a bit and painfully died. In the end, having no choice, he has accepted it, and even began to find it enjoyable at times, the whole mystery solving business.

There are, as he knows now, three kinds of mysteries.

The first are fun ones, those that Wilkinson brings in colourful paperbacks, little detective stories, and urges Svlad to read them and try to find the solution before it is revealed. Then, later, there are the mysteries that come in big manila folders. These are harder, because sometimes there isn’t much to go on, sometimes hardly anything between the black squares where it looks like words should have been. They are the bad ones; in these mysteries, people always get kidnapped or killed or redacted. That’s what it sometimes says there: [REDACTED]. Svlad asks what does it mean for people to be redacted, but Wilkinson brusquely tells him to forget it and focus. Svlad argues that how can he solve the mystery, if he doesn’t have all the information, and doesn’t even know what [REDACTED] means.

“Something bad that you don’t need to concern yourself with,” replies Wilkinson. It’s a little patronising, considering that despite his 10 years of age Svlad is already working as a secret agent, sort of. He won’t admit it, but he is afraid that one day he will be [REDACTED] too, that something bad will happen to him and everyone will just sigh and shrug and decide not to concern themselves with it and focus on something else, and forget him.

The third kind of mystery is the weird ones, when Wilkinson asks him about aliens or ghosts or “lizard people from the Government”. These are rare, and Wilkinson always speaks in hushed voice and shoots nervous glances towards the camera under the ceiling. But even though anxious, he seems keen to have someone to talk about them with, and Svlad manages to get a lot of fun stories out of him, and also accidentally convince him that general Kinsey is a lizard person from the Government. (Made the next monthly inspection a lot more fun than ever before, for sure.)

Words and pictures and questions without context. A Sherlock Holmes’ case and a gruesome murder in a Midwestern town and Wilkinson’s conspiracy theories.

Svlad doesn’t like Wilkinson very much, but he’s better than Díaz and Ximénez, the doctors. Díaz seems out of her depth in here, subdued by the soldiers and the brash, overbearing Ximénez; she makes up with false confidence and hiding her natural kindness. Ximénez usually looks at him in an odd way, and together with Díaz they talk in Spanish a lot when they don’t want him to understand. He hates it all – the incomprehensible conversations and black squares and understatements. Needles and pills and electrodes and machines. “This won’t hurt” and other lies the adults tell him. Or alternatively, the times when Ximénez gets all chummy in a loud and rough way like the men do between themselves. Díaz sometimes forgets herself and refers to Svlad by his name; she pronounces it in a funny way. To Ximénez and Wilkinson, he is always “Icarus”. The first time they use the codename he is confused, and then protests, stubbornly refusing to react, as if they were not talking to him, but eventually he gives up and acknowledges it. Ximénez says it with a kind of mock seriousness; Wilkinson, with the reverence that he usually reserves for other funny words like “the Bavarian Illuminati” or “the land of Mu” or “confirmed sightings”. And then there is Riggins, whom Svlad initially hated as the man it all started with, but it gets more complicated than that, because despite anything the project might involve, there is some sort of paternal kindness to him, an approach as gentle as possible, which others lack. He is now a comforting presence, familiar face, and Svlad even starts to call him “uncle Scott”.

 

* * *

 

Something is changing. He is older now; how old exactly, he is not sure, he always gets the times and dates wrong.

General Kinsey comes in more often now, and the tension between him and Riggins seems to grow. Everyone is on edge, and they yell at him a lot when he gets stuff wrong, and they don’t let him see the others and keep his door locked. For some time now, he’s only been getting the manila folders mysteries, and he doesn’t mind it that much, until he sees the name ‘Carl Sutton’ on one of the files, and a glance at the photo inside reveals that it’s Carl, Carl the supervisor, except he looks different because he is not smiling anymore, and Svlad doesn’t want to read the file but they make him. And Díaz’ tests get worse too, everything just keeps getting worse.

One day he wakes up to find a toy, a little rubber doll, sitting on his desk. He doesn’t know how it got there or what it means, but it’s a sign, he concludes, though of what, he has no idea. He puts it in his pocket, and in the evening, he discovers it’s not there anymore.

That night he is woken up by the noise, and finds four older boys breaking down the door to his room, shouting in unison over the blaring alarm. They round him up in the corner and everything explodes in a flash of bright blue light before slowly fading to black, and as they leave hooting and stomping the last thing that passes through his mind is that the door is wide open for the first time in weeks but he cannot get up.

 

He can still imagine going out there, free, out of this place, though the concept of anything outside the facility and its surroundings begins to feel like a distant memory. It’s like living in a snow globe, whole world reduced to this: the small complex of buildings, around it nothing but sand, glittering in the harsh sunlight, all enclosed under the glass dome of the sky, that might just as well be impenetrable.


	4. Children who did not specially want it to happen

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> What is this even about? Beats me.

_You promised them something, and you couldn't deliver. You promised_ me _something,and you couldn't deliver._

_Go back to hiding in the shadows. It was the only thing you were ever good at._

**Project: Incubus, 25/09/1988, 23:07**

It’s late when Díaz arrives, and she’s been driving for hours, and all she really wants is to go to sleep; but she goes into the common room nonetheless – partially because she wants to be polite and say hello to everyone, and partially because the agent that was supposed to escort her to her quarters didn’t exactly know the way himself, got lost and brought her here instead, and now has scurried away in shame, leaving her on her own. As she enters, she catches the two men inside in the middle of an incomprehensible conversation.

“Here, have a coffee, man. You look positively _drained_. Have you been working with the vampires again?”

“Shut up, Ximénez. you cannot make a joke to save your life, don’t even try. Besides, I still object to that designation. They are not vampires.”

“Yeah, sure, if you think of fangs, sleeping in coffins and church-and-garlic-allergy. But how do you better describe what happened to Carl, huh?”

“They didn’t turn him, either. Also, what’s the point of cataloguing assignment, if you can’t make up good codenames?”

“Like what?”

“Succubus.”

“Isn’t that, like, a sex demon?”

“Ekhem.” That’s Díaz, who at this point decides she cannot take any more of this. “Hello. I’m Nora, Nora Díaz. I just arrived.” She extends a hand, that Ximénez stares at for a moment before shaking.

“Ximénez. Welcome to whatever this is.” His voice snaps Wilkinson, still talking, out of his reverie. He shakes Díaz’ hand enthusiastically, babbling about “joining the team” and “the frontier of human understanding”.

The guy seems like a nutter, and Díaz regrets asking the question the moment she says it aloud.

“So… Vampires?”

“Project Succubus,” Wilkinson replies, ignoring a withering glare from Ximénez, who interjects. “Three boys we found in less than a week. Been living on the streets, we reckon. We put them separately at first, but in rooms next to each other, and they’ve been scratching and banging at the walls until we got them together. They’re inseparable now, the little gang of psychos. And you know what they did? Jumped at Carl – the supervisor – and started, like, sucking the life energy out of him. Took ten men to get them off him.”

“Life energy?” she parrots, raising her eyebrows. “That’s… not a thing?”

“Oh yeah? And who are you to tell, exactly?” snaps Wilkinson, a little too aggressively.

“I’m a neurophysiologist, for your information. I have been assigned to this project to study subjects presenting unusual brain activity. Vampires and New Age crap were not in the job description,” she retorts. “And who are you?” she adds, her voice dripping with sarcasm, drip, drop.

“I’m ufologist, and an expert in paranormal phenomena.”

“Oh, _right_.” Drip, drop.

Next day, first thing in the morning, she makes sure to point out that succubus is a female creature, so if anything, it should be incubus. To Ximénez’ dismay, it stays. A week later, he’s on it, too, naming the next project “Abaddon”.

**Project: Herodias, 18/04/1990, 17:59**

“It’s more of your specialty, Nora. You’re the brain doctor.”

“I’m not a psychologist, Pablo. I can tell you about the chemicals in her frontal lobe, but I can’t… help her.”

Herodias is a tough case. Díaz doesn’t know that – she doesn’t have the full security clearance after all – but not all the subjects have been brought in voluntarily, and whoever here has a conscience, must sometimes grapple with it. But in Herodias’ case, they felt almost like heroes, having rescued her from her brother trying to kill her. She took special liking to Carl, who even agreed to stay with her overnight, despite it being a breach of protocol; a convenient glitch in the monitoring system ensured that Carl wasn’t reassigned or worse, and the girl slept well for the first time in ages. The many subjects’ affinity with Carl, displayed in all their unique ways, has already led to a running joke that perhaps they should make him one of the projects. Carl is not amused.

**Project: Lamia, 02/01/1992, 10:39**

Lamia has just been discovered making her 53rd escape attempt since being brought in on June 31, 1991. She was trying to pick the lock on the door with a sharpened toothbrush; when questioned, says the idea came to her in a dream. When patiently explained that no harm will come to her and she’ll be let out as soon as the initial assessment is completed – which will be completed when she stops trying to escape – subject said “it’s not about freedom, it’s about a rock. The rock is important. It’s waiting for me, somewhere out there. I need to find it.” I feel the need to note here that Lamia is a 40-year-old woman.

**Project: Banshee, 04/03/1996, 19:00**

“It’s a baby, Ximénez. Explain yourself.”

“I call it Banshee,” Ximénez replies with pride.

“Why?” Riggins asks warily.

“It screams a lot.” As if to illustrate the point, the baby lets out a terrifying shriek.

“You took… a _baby_?! This is beneath even you, Ximénez. Give me one good reason why I should send the baby back to its family, and assign you to Project Cain.”

“I found it in a shop, sir.”

“Ximénez, you are trying my patience.”

“Well,” Ximénez starts, taking a deep breath, “my wife’s sister is having a baby, we went to buy her a cot, in one there was a baby. They were making announcements and all, but no one responded. Then they called the police and they recognized it by that birthmark there. Apparently for some time it’s just been appearing, people would find it instead of their baby, or it would just be, well, where’d you expect it – hospitals, homes, orphanages, strollers - but no one ever knows how it got there. It just appears. And since no one admits it’s theirs, I figured I can take it.”

**Project: Bel, 26/08/1998, 03:08**

“I’m sorry to wake you up, sir, but we just run another test and…”

“I’ve been running this project for ten years, and no one has ever –”

“Jesus, has it really been 10 years?! How time flies…”

“Ximénez! Get to the point.”

“Yes. Sorry. Sir, I give up. We’re recommending you discharge Bel, sir. There’s no point in keeping him anymore.”

“Bel, that’s the one who…”

“…Bends spoons, sir.”

“I thought I’d made it clear that the telekinetics are our top priority now, didn’t you get the memo?”

“You…misunderstood me, sir. He _bends spoons_. That’s literally all he does. We tried other small objects, other metal objects, all the standard tests, everything. No results. So, I suggest we sent him back home, sir.”

“Now? Its 3 am, Ximénez.”

“Well, his circadian rhythm is a bit weird and…”

“Oh, just…whatever,” Riggins grumbles and hangs up.

**Project: Moloch, 29/11/1999, 16:15**

I ran another brain scan on Moloch today. No unusual activity on her own; slight excitation and precognitive abilities return when she gets back the doll, which the subject calls Mona.

Oh, yes, I forgot to mention that. I think we were all a bit spooked, and tried to forget.

Last week Moloch came into the shared playroom with a new toy. Nobody, and I mean it, nobody knows where it came from. They check everything that the subjects might bring with them, and everything in their quarters, they actually keep detailed inventory lists of every stupid pair of pants and teddy bear and crayon set and pillowcase, stupid, right? And they went through all that, some poor idiot must’ve spent hours reading those stupid files, and nothing. _Nada_. Of course, there is always the possibility that one of the staff left it somewhere for her to find, but when the whole ghost story blew up, they didn’t want to admit it, because they were afraid (could this be treated as breach of security? Could someone get fired for that? I wonder), or they are now having a laugh at us freaking out.

I’m straying from the topic. Sorry.

It’s one of these stress squeezies, these rubber dolls that you can squeeze and their eyes pop out. Mona – I’m sorry, Moloch – won’t say where she got it from. She seems to always have it with her these days, though curiously, you can sometimes find it someplace – your desk drawer, some other subject’s room, general Kinsey’s pocket (oh, wasn’t that fun), middle of an empty corridor at night (I should apologize to Pete again for raising a false alarm) … And it’s never random, something always happens where it’s sighted.

Also, Moloch’s abilities increase two-fold with it around. Ximénez jokes that maybe the doll is the real psychic here.

Worst thing is, I’m starting to seriously consider it. God, I’m gonna go crazy in this place. Yesterday that nutjob Wilkinson asked me if I’m sure that the subjects are human. At first I told him off, because for God’s sake, I know they’re all little freaks, but that was just terrible; however, it turned out that he honestly, unironically, in all good faith meant aliens or lizard people stuff. Help me.

**Project: Icarus, 01/01/2000, 00:00**

Later, someone will probably blame all this on a fault in the security system. Maybe a glitch caused by the infamous millennium bug – surely, the timing couldn’t have been a coincidence? – although how exactly has that happened, they wouldn’t be able to explain. But the truth is, at this point, it comes as no surprise, and no one really cares. After the first breakouts, they tightened security, and to make up for the losses, they tried to come up with better results – all for nothing. The top management was running out of resources and patience for the whole project, and the only reason they haven’t shut it down yet was because they were still debating whether to let everyone involved go or precautionarily dispose of them. Given all that, someone probably just leaves some doors open, simple as that.

 

“Honey, did you see that?” A voice says, and the car slows down. “Pull up,” the voice urges. “Ask him if he needs help.”

There is a child walking alone alongside the road. Which, in itself, isn’t that unusual; there are homeless children, children who ran away from home, and children who lost their way home, and you would occasionally see them walking alone alongside a road. It’s not an everyday occurrence, but it wouldn’t shock you that much; unless said child is trotting along the interstate from New Mexico to Arizona, miles away from the nearest town, gas station or any sign of civilisation at all, at 2:30 am. The car stops and a middle-aged man leans out of the window.

“Hey, kid! You need help?” he shouts. The boy looks up from the road and blinks, momentarily blinded by the car’s lights, but doesn’t respond. “Lost your way home, pal?” the man asks; silly question in a ridiculous situation. The boy thinks long before answering.

“Yes,” he says quietly.

“Where are your mum and dad?” asks the second, female voice from inside the car.

“England, I think,” the boy replies coyly. The couple in the car give each other a long look.

“Well… You shouldn’t be out here all by yourself, let’s give you a lift. Come on, hop in, and we’ll find your folks, okay? I’m Doug, by the way. And you?”

“Doug.”

“Yes, Doug. What’s your name?”

“Doug.”

“…Right. What a coincidence, eh?” The boy looks as if he was going to say something, but thought better of it, and clambers onto the back seat in awkward silence.

“I’m Alicia,” says the woman with a nervous smile. “Say, what were you doing out here?”

“It’s a matter of national security,” the boy replies as if it was the most natural thing in the world, certainly more natural than things that parents usually teach their children, such as “don’t get into a stranger’s car” or “don’t go for a night walk and a spot of hitch-hiking in the middle of the desert” – things that Doug (they aren’t convinced that’s really his name) doesn’t seem concerned about doing. Doug and Alicia don’t say anything, but start to regret getting involved. They acted on a good-hearted impulse, but now that the irrational situation got no rational explanation, they are unsure what to do, and that makes them uncomfortable, and they start to think: why did they pick him up? It’s not their problem, maybe they shouldn’t have? It’s some time until the nearest town, and if the boy’s family is found, should they ask for a reward or at least for the gas money back? (And they feel guilty for thinking such things). Like every good citizen who has never had any contact with police, they believe that the police are definitely a solution, and drop Doug off at the nearest station in the nearest town; the tired, bored policewoman on duty assures them that she’ll take care of it, takes their contact details, and to their relief, tells them to go.

“On a run, are we?” she asks dispassionately. The kid seems startled, so she puts a comforting hand on his shoulder, and takes a hearty sip of her coffee, which turns out to be a hearty sip of the sweet, gritty sludge on the bottom, so she grimaces, spits it back into the cup, and throws it out. “Don’t worry. I bet your folks are more worried than angry. Trust me, they won’t be mad. They’ll be happy to see you back.”

“I know,” he agrees.

“Should we call them, then, um… what was your name again?”

“I’m not Doug,” he replies in a conspiratorial whisper. He ends it at that, afraid to give his real name because, well, he’s just escaped from a government facility, hasn’t he?

“O-kay. Not Doug, let’s call your mum. Can you tell me her name, and where do you live?” she sighs deeply as the boy gives her a name she can’t repeat and an address in England. “What about you address here? I mean, where are you staying here? Hotel? Friends, family?”

Questions make him uneasy. “I… I don’t know,” he mumbles, not knowing what to say.

“Right, we’ll deal with that in the morning,” she decides. “I bet you’re tired, uh, the only beds we have are in the cells, but there’s an armchair in my office you can sleep in? Oh, and if you’re hungry, there’s some leftover pizza on the desk,” she says, leaving him alone.

Knocking on the door doesn’t wake her up, but her colleague shaking her arm does.

“Mm, what is it?” she asks blearily.

“Tam, we have a problem. If you’re asleep on my desk, and some crazy teenage boy is making a mess out of your room, then where am I supposed to work?”

It takes a moment for the meaning of his words to sink in, before she gets up and runs to her office with a quiet “shit, shit, _shit_ ” on her lips. It is a mess, alright: she’d put it down to a medium-sized tornado going through her filing cabinet, if the real culprit wasn’t sitting right there, amidst the strewn-out papers.

“This is important,” he deadpans, handing her one of the files.

“What are you doing?!” she asks sternly.

“I’m solving the mysteries,” he replies matter-of-factly. “Roberts stole the car, but he didn’t break into that house, and as for the assault last week…”

“Wha – how – you know, never mind that! You can’t just look through this stuff!”

“B-but I… I solved the mysteries,” he says defensively, his eyes filling up with tears.

**Project: Marzanna, 01/03/2005, 16:17**

They tell her to kill a guy, so she sets off to kill the guy. If the universe permits.

All these years, and they haven’t learned yet that there is little point in giving her orders. She will, of course, comply – she never personally knows her targets, so she doesn’t care whether they live or die, and it’s always best to avoid the punishment for disobedience – but effectiveness is a whole different matter. It’s the will of the universe, you see, and she’s merely it’s weapon. If a target really is her target, she sometimes barely needs to raise a finger – her presence is enough. If a target isn’t her target, just someone her superiors want dead for their secret reasons (not necessarily the same as the universe’s secret reasons), she put her gun’s whole round into them at point blank range, and they might survive. Not her fault. And they know that, and usually they let her choose her own targets, but you know how it’s like, sometimes you’re really desperate to kill someone and you think screw this, I’m gonna try, maybe the universe will be on my side –

Carl Sutton, for example, wasn’t her target. She even liked him, as much as she’s ever liked anyone, and didn’t really want to kill him, but tried to, because she was told to. Back then, a lot of people ran away and there was a lot of hassle about that, and they told her that agent Sutton has defected – whatever that means – and she must find him and eliminate him. Bart is usually astonishingly indifferent to her work, but she takes pleasure in killing one of Sutton’s superiors (it’s not some newly awakened deviation of hers; the man was just one hell of an asshole, and the universe must’ve thought so too, appointing him her target). She’s been thinking about Carl from time to time since then, which was unusual in itself, and was slowly coming to a decision.

And loyal until now, given another wrong target, Bart decides that the universe makes infinitely better choices on who deserves to die than the CIA, and abandons the Agency just like agent Sutton did before her, and simply drives off into the distance. Freedom isn’t really a familiar concept to her; even before the CIA, she has realized herself to be, in a way, a slave to a higher power. She still is, in the same way, but this time she somehow feels better.

**Project: Herodias, 10/05/2016, 09:11**

No one calls her Herodias anymore; she’s back to her family name, agent Harada. But between themselves, Riggins still refers to her as “Ias”, like she used to introduce herself as a child, shortening the strange codename she didn’t fancy very much. This is how he calls her now, seeing she is alone in her room.

The ghosts don’t count.

She doesn’t believe in ghosts anymore, but hasn’t yet found a better word the traces of people who have walked (or will walk) the paths she observes. She is a tracker. In her room, computer screens and file pages cover the walls from ceiling to floor. Databases, archives, security camera recordings – she has access to it all, and takes it all in, as she moves through the room like in a trance, to the barely audible sound of disco music and anime opening songs playing from the speakers in the corner.

“Do you have something for me, Ias?”

Her head snaps around sharply, and she falls into a flurry of movement.

“Yes. I followed the currents. South to North,” she explains, skipping from one screen to another and pointing at a map, “is a strong one. Be in Seattle… in three days.”

“Icarus?” Riggins asks, and almost holds his breath in anticipation.

“That’s Svlad, isn’t it?” she says softly, with a smile. “Yes, among others. Find Todd Brotzman.”

“Who’s that?”

“Male. White. Thirty-three years old. Lives on his own, 515 Ridgely Lane, Seattle. He’s at the point of convergence. Follow him, you’ll find the others. Can I ask you a question?” she adds without skipping a beat. “Out of all of them, why are you so interested in him?”

He doesn’t have an answer, or at least not one that he thinks she would understand. He could say something about regrets, about unfulfilled hopes and promises and all that, but even she would probably think it too sentimental and fanciful, so he doesn’t say anything.

 

**Project: Blackwing, 11/05/2016, 13:25**

Jessica Wilson reads through the files again, drumming her fingers on the table. She is unsure what to do with all of this. Strange stories, some honest scientific research, but mostly incoherent, esoteric blabbering, and a lot of sloppy work. The kind of sloppy she absolutely can’t stand, so if anything, she’d like to bring some order to this madness. Also, some of these people look genuinely dangerous, so she can’t just throw it all out straight away, can she?

Well, seems she simply has to step in and take it from there.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Righto. In hindsight, probably should've written it all before uploading; if i did, I'd probs put chapter 1 as chapter 5, instead of abandoning everything to get lost in the flashbacks for a month (?!). Oh well. It was fun, at least for me.  
> Anyways, I promise, I swear, I haven't forgotten about the others, and I'm coming back to 2016 next time. Cross my heart.


	5. Where the dogs go on with their doggy life

_I learned a long time ago that things don't always make sense the way people want them to_.

 

The light on the ceiling is always on. It is the first thing he sees as he wakes up, its afterimage exploding under his eyelids – yellow circles swimming and chasing one another before his eyes. He observes them for a while as if they were the most fascinating thing in the world, the little dancing whorls, and thinks of circles.

Dirk Gently feels like he’s just going around in circles, trapped in a spiralling pattern he cannot break out of. He comes back to England as soon as he can – that is, on his sixteenth birthday, after nearly two years of nagging his foster parents to take him there. It’s hardly the gift he’s dreamt of; just as he’s been told, his mother disappeared without a trace, Ellie Parsons now lives in his childhood home, and he must spend another two years in America before he can move out and come back again. But having no actual place to come back to, he’s just drifting, living a notorious life of short-lived bizarre scandals and minor yet frequent run-ins with the police, all wrapped up in long, lonely days of staring into the wall and trying to figure out what to do with his life.

Then, as if gravitating back home, but not quite completing the circle, he ends up in London. And at first nothing changes, and then a lot changes and he feels like maybe he’s on a tangent leading out into something exciting and new – but once again his life loops back on itself. Here we are again, another circle completed, he thinks. Years of running away only to end up back in this place, with these people.

Whatever they’ve given him to knock him out still hasn’t completely worn off, so it’s all rather hazy, but one thought dawns on him with perfect clarity:

It always starts with a cat.

Like Mrs. Chaudhuri’s lost dog-cat that led him to Mr. Wadworth’s body that led the CIA to him.

Like all these crazy cat problems that propelled him into this whole private detective business, the best job he’s ever had. Well, the only job he’s ever had, but wasn’t it just the best?

Like the half-lost cat (or lost half-cat? He can’t remember) that he came to America after, which was also a thoroughly enjoyable experience, if you count out the encounters with the Rowdy Three.

Like the shark-cat that killed Patrick Spring before Dirk had the chance to get out of America, which has begun to be a not-so-enjoyable experience. But on the other hand, he has made friends there and…

As he vows to never, ever again take up a case with a cat involved, another red light of a thought flashes up deep inside his brain. Friends. Todd and Farah, and possibly Amanda too. And the terrible danger they are in. He has forgotten all about that, stupid, thinking about cats and dogs and sharks and the past…

 

* * *

 

Farah wants to go home, but the others firmly protest that it’s late, that they’re tired and there’s no way they’re going anywhere, and since they _absolutely do not_ split up, she has no choice but stay with them at Todd’s, to which she reluctantly agrees. Having settled that, they call it a night; Vogle is apparently content curling up on the carpet, Todd stays on the decrepit sofa, letting Amanda and Farah squeeze into his old bed in the corner, which together with the bathroom were the only ones to escape the Rowdy Three’s onslaught.

“Farah, can you please stop tossing around?” mutters Amanda blearily.

“Yes, I’m sorry, I just – I’m sorry.”

“Listen,” says Amanda, putting a comforting arm around her. “I know you’re nervous. But I did a cross-country run from the government today, and God knows what’s gonna happen tomorrow, so let’s get some rest, okay?”

“Okay.”

“Good.”

 

In the morning, as rested as they could be and ready for whatever they’re about to do (still no plan, as Todd keeps reminding everyone), they decide to leave for the Spring mansion; or rather Farah orders the others to get in her van immediately, as she would prefer to change into her own clothes, thank you very much, and most of all collect her weapons, all of them. Amanda, clearly thrilled to be involved in plotting against the government, follows Farah’s lead with quiet admiration. Todd shares the feeling, but mostly just resigns to listen to whoever takes charge, content that this person doesn’t have to be him, as he has _absolutely no fucking idea_ how to proceed. Vogle seems to go wherever Amanda goes (like a loyal dog, thinks Todd), his mood swings taking him between outbursts of manic energy and sitting quietly in the corner, and the more he observes him, the more Todd begins to think rather uncomfortable thoughts about being experimented on by the CIA as a child.

 

“No, no, no, no, _no_!” Farah repeats in frustration and disbelief as the car comes to a halt on the driveway to what’s now only the charred remains of a once stately, proud and _unburned_ suburban residence.

“Shit!” exclaims Amanda, keeping in the back, but peering curiously over Farah’s shoulder. Farah looks around, but the place seems deserted; she reaches for her gun nonetheless, just in case whoever has done this was still around.

“What the hell happened here?!” asks Todd, feeling like he should contribute to the chorus, as he clambers out of the car after the others, who are already running up to the smoking rubble.

“Amanda!” he shouts after his sister, catching her arm. “Amanda, wait. Tell me, who were the guys you said you and the Rowdy Three had saved us from yesterday?”

“Those guys? Police, I think, but, like, riot gear and all. And some weird dudes. Bald dudes with tattoos. They had electric crossbows, can you believe this shit?”

“Yeah, I’ve met them. Damn. That doesn’t add up.”

“Why, what are you thinking?”

“Well, they wouldn’t burn the place down, it was like they’re sacred… place. With the lab and the machine… So, it must’ve been the CIA, right? But why would they? Do you think they found out about the time machine?”

“Todd, I have no idea what you’re talking about. And did you just say “travels to the future”?” But he wasn’t listening, lost in thought. It’s Vogle’s inappropriate shout of excitement and Farah’s stifled gasp that snap him out of his reverie.

“Oh, my God.” Farah puts a hand to her mouth. “Are these…”

Following her gaze, he notices the grilled human remains poking out of the debris, and swears under his breath.

“We should call the police,” he says. “Hey, maybe Estevez? I mean, he’s practically one of us, right?”

“He’s from missing persons, that’s not his department.”

“Yeah, but he’ll listen to us, right? He’ll believe us?” Actually, Todd didn’t have a good history of Estevez believing him and not accusing him of multiple murder and arson, but well, desperate times…

“No,” Farah cuts him off. “No police. No contacting anyone. No drawing attention to ourselves. Okay?”

“Okay.”

 

“This is a bad idea,” says Farah for about a hundredth time, and Todd nods sagely, if you can look sagely with such an expression of shock and nicely brewing panic in your eyes as he has. Despite the general unspoken consensus that it’s entirely possible for the CIA to expect them there, at Vogle’s adamant pleas they return to the place where the Rowdies were attacked. At least he seems happy, his spirits lifting immediately as he finds his old trusty baseball bat; the others conclude the trip was rather pointless. On the other hand, they don’t find any burned bodies, which gives them some hope. Steadfastly refusing to take the Rowdies’ van (Vogle is disappointed, but finally accepts the argument that it would be drawing unwanted attention), they move all the discarded baggage and makeshift weapons into Farah’s car. Just before leaving, Todd notices something else in the scorched and trodden grass: Dirk’s squeezy toy. He decides to keep it.

 

“…It seems that the rumours of a shark living in the Lake Washington have been confirmed. A hammerhead shark has been found dead on the shore last night. According to eyewitnesses, it has jumped out of the water on its own, quote, _hissing like a cat that fell into a bathtub_ …” Todd frowns and turns the car radio’s volume up. “Earlier this morning, a fire broke out at Springsborough in downtown area,” the news anchor continues. “No fatalities were reported, but one of the buildings suffered significant damage…” he switches it off as the broadcast drifts off into other, insignificant news and weather reports, and they sit in stunned silence for a while.

“Do you think…”

“Yeah. That couldn’t have been a coincidence.”

“So, are we all, like, totally homeless now?”

“There’s still my place,” Amanda offers. “I hope so.”

Farah once again protests that it’s dangerous, and they could be walking right into CIA’s hands, but they but they are running out of options; eventually, it’s the argument that Amanda and Todd might need Amanda’s stockpile of meds that wins her over. She still insists that they leave tomorrow at the latest.

“Do you think our parents are in danger?” Amanda asks, and Todd immediately feels guilty for not asking that himself.

“It will probably be… safer if you don’t contact them,” says Farah. “Oh, and when we’ll be getting close, park some distance away from the house. I’ll go on foot first and check if the place is clear,” she adds.

“This is fucking unreal,” mutters Amanda. Todd grunts feebly from the back seat in agreement.

 

Fortunately, Amanda’s house turns out to be free of pyromaniac government agents, and they barricade themselves inside. That is, Todd, Amanda and Vogle do; Farah firmly commands them to stay put, and disappears off, as she says, shopping. After the first hour, they’re already worried sick; after the second hour passes, they are positively panicked, when someone taps sharply at the door.

“Farah?” Amanda mouths at the others. Having come up with all sorts of scenarios, they are not sure, and no one wants to answer the insistent knocking. After a moment’s hesitation, Todd creeps up to the window and peeks through the drawn blinds. At the front door, there is a petite man with shortly cropped hair and a pencil-thin moustache, wearing a black suit and sunglasses.

“Well, is it her?” whispers Amanda impatiently. Todd turns around with a puzzled expression on his face, so she rolls her eyes and joins him. “Is this a secret agent or what? And is this his car?” she asks, indicating the pink van at the kerb. They jump back as the stranger moves in to face them. He takes of his glasses and presses his face against the glass.

“It’s me,” he says.

“Farah?” Amanda asks, frowning, and opens the door cautiously.

“At last,” Farah sighs, coming in and dropping a holdall to the floor. “I mean, you’re careful. That’s good.” Todd is suddenly aware that he's staring, jaw dropped, mouth open, and he closes his mouth with embarrassment.

“We need disguises,” Farah explains. “Todd, don’t shave, and put this on,” she instructs him, handing him a plastic bag.

“What? No way,” he retorts, looking inside.

“Oh, hold on, this first,” she adds, ignoring his protests, and tossing him a blond hair dye. Amanda snorts and laughs, until Farah throws her another one. Her face falls, but she surrenders and goes to the bathroom. Fifteen minutes later, she comes out to find disgruntled Todd with a towel wrapped around his head and Vogle washed up like he’s never been before, dressed like some k-pop star, and Farah with her hands on her hips, surveying her handiwork with pride.

“Shame about your hair,” says Todd. Farah shrugs.

“It’ll grow back,” she replies, peeling off the fake moustache. “And it worked, didn’t it?”

“...Yeah.”

 

* * *

 

Call it an exercise in faith. And really, if you consider some things that institutionalized religions believe in or get up to, it’s not even that weird. Ken’s reasoning is this:

Bart didn’t kill him or even ditch him after he fulfilled his immediate purpose by fixing the machine. You could put it down to feelings, of course, but with Bart… (Not that she doesn’t have feelings; over the past week both of them discovered she has considerably more than they have initially suspected.)

He is a part of the pattern now. A leaf in the stream of creation. If he just drives on, turning whenever he feels like it, if he closes his eyes and shuts everything out – okay, maybe that’s a bad idea when you’re driving – too late – he swerves and skids –

Crash.

Silence, for a moment.

Ken stirs and groans and then is thrown brutally back into wakefulness as someone yanks the door open, drags him rather roughly out of the car and gives him a gentle, yet firm slap for good measure.

“Ow! What –” he blinks and looks around. It looks like the cab, having previously survived an encounter with US army, has now fallen to a road sign. The other car – a hideous, gaudy pink van – appears undamaged, as do the people clambering out of it. And they are a strange bunch, too: the three catwalk-grade dressed men – the one that has slapped him, one running around and screaming, one looking like he’s screaming internally just as loud, but outwardly just standing there – and a blonde in a summer dress wrapped in a huge leather jacket. Internally Screaming moves closer to take a better look at Ken; after a momentary inspection, there is a flash of recognition in his eyes, and he exclaims: “Guys, it’s him! It’s – it’s that guy!” The others answer only with blank stares. “Oh, right. You weren’t there,” he adds as an afterthought.

“Wait,” replies the one standing over Ken. “I know him, he was with that crazy woman who tried to kill Dirk in the mall!”

Ken raises a hand and gives them a small wave. “Um… I’m right here,” he says timidly.

“Did you try to kill us, too? Why did you run into us?”

“Oh, no, I didn’t, I just… I’m sorry,” he stutters, preparing himself for another slap.

“I’m sorry, who’s that?” interrupts the girl, who has by now managed to reach a more confused expression that the Internally Screaming man, which was quite an accomplishment.

“It’s the guy who fixed the time machine for us,” Internally Screaming explains, and something finally clicks in Ken’s head. Dirk Gently’s friend or assistant or whatever.

“Oh, right,” mutters the girl. “The time machine. Of course. Why did I even ask?”

Now it’s Ken’s turn to feel like the dumb one here. “The _what_?”

“You didn’t know what it was?!”

“I thought it was a… power converter, or something! And you’re telling me you have a time machine?!”

Todd shakes his head. “Not anymore. We had to send it off into the past. Why?”

“Why? Why?! If we had a time machine, we could… we could go back and stop…” his voice breaks.

Todd closes his eyes and takes a deep breath. “No,” he sighs. “We couldn’t…”

Amanda takes Ken by his hand and pulls him away from the cab as Vogle sets off to finish it. “Don’t worry,” she attempts to reassure him. “He does that. And you can come with us. I guess,” she adds, looking for the others to confirm. Farah nods in agreement.

“Tell us what happened,” she says, and he tells them everything as they drive away, not knowing where to go.

 

Todd is sitting in the back, squeezed into the corner, trying to quietly digest everything that has happened, but it’s hard when Ken and Farah are still talking, and next to him Amanda and Vogle are cheerfully singing, rocking the car and occasionally punching the roof. Here we are, he thinks, like a family going on holiday, parents discussing their grown-up stuff in the front and kids yelling in the back seat jumping up and down, except the family now comprises of an ex-bodyguard of a murdered billionaire, a psychic assassin’s best friend, a crazy anarchist with strange powers and two messed-up Brotzmans, riding off into the sunset (only metaphorically, as it is still early afternoon) to find and possibly storm some secret government facility. ( _The universe will lead us there_ , assures Ken. _Okay, but I’m not letting you behind the wheel_ , concludes Farah.) Great. This is reality now, apparently. He is not sure when did he resign to his life not making sense anymore, just as he is not sure when did he realize that Dirk Gently is not going to disappear from his life in the foreseeable future; he only knows that the two issues are indeed, as everything that has been going on as of late, very closely connected. He starts absent-mindedly playing with that rubber doll he’s found, the mechanical action and repeated sound helping him gather his scattered thoughts.

Crunch – squeal – hiss. Crunch – squeal – hiss. Crunch –

Which, in hindsight, might not have been such a good idea, because the closer he looks at them, the more hopelessness-shaped his thoughts appear.

Squeal –

But hey, hang in there, Dirk, because we are coming to get you.

Hiss.

Just as soon as we figure out how to get about it and where the hell you are.

Crunch –

It’s a pity you don’t have some sort of long-distance telepathic powers, because that would be really useful right now.

Squeal –

Well, couldn’t get rid of you when I tried to, so let’s hope I’ll somehow bump into you again, right?

Hiss.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> see? told you i'll come back to present time and all. sorry that it was shorter and less polished up than the previous ones, but i've been having some hectic time so. uh.
> 
> anyone here has seen Utopia? remember that scene where Jessica Hyde tells Grant that since he's on the run, he needs a disguise, and he very much no likes it? 'cause this is probably where my horrible idea has sprung from.  
> speaking of my horrible ideas, this was not the major character death i warned you about, but let us nonetheless take a moment of silence for Farah's Hair. RIP
> 
> (yes i know, there is a special place in hell reserved for me now.)


	6. While someone else is eating or opening a window or just walking dully along

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Welcome to the new installment of my thrilling saga "Me vs. Writer's Block".  
> With heartfelt apologies for the delay and for the fact that once again it's short and still nothing bloody happens in there, here you go.

_Sometimes when you fall down, you fall all the way down._

 

“Come in.”

Riggins enters the room and almost, habitually, sits down, but no. Not this time. This time he stands there, leaning forward, palms pressed against the desk, and glares at Wilson in silence. It would be a long staring contest, tense like a duel of two Old Western gunfighters at high noon outside the saloon, if only she looked him in the eye. But instead, she makes a show of ignoring him, studying a file she has taken out of her desk drawer. She doesn’t even pretend to be reading it, just flicks through the pages with only a tiny bit less disinterest than she shows the quietly seething man opposite her.

 “You’re not running this project anymore,” she says, still not bothering to look up at him.

“I know,” he retorts sharply. “You have made that quite clear already… ma’am.”

“So, what exactly are you doing here, colonel?” she asks. Her voice is calm and measured; it is hard and cold, and it puts him on edge more than if she was yelling.

“I want to see them,” he says simply.

For the first time, she actually looks him in the face. “What, all of them? Right now?” she asks, a slight twitch in the corner of her lips betraying a hint of amusement. The question disconcerts him.

“How many have you –”

“Oh, we’ve been doing just great,” she assures. “Much better than you, but then again, that’s not much of an accomplishment.”

“I still have the clearance,” he says slowly, trying to keep his cool. _Don’t let her provoke you_.

“No,” she retorts bluntly. “I have revoked it. You don’t have anything to do with this project anymore. I won’t draw you a retirement plan, but you can start by leaving this room. You are dismissed, colonel.”

 

* * *

 

Ken turns the TV on to drown out their voices, just in case someone was listening. It feels like a trick picked up from a movie, and in this dingy motel room from a thousand gritty gangster dramas it feels just right. And it’s a good thing he did that, because Amanda jumps straight to the point.

“So, you said you were a hacker, or something?” she asks in that matter-of-fact, blasé voice of hers.

“I, uh… I’m an IT technician,” Ken says. “Officially,” he adds a little meekly after a pause.

“But you could, like, break into a government database? Like the CIA’s archives or whatever?”

“No!” he protests. Amanda tilts her head and raises an eyebrow.

“Maybe,” he capitulates. “But, look, I – I don’t even have a computer with me now!”

“We can get you one,” says Amanda with a shrug.

“Amanda!” Todd chastises her. “Are you going to just… steal stuff?”

“We’re on the run from the government anyway.”

“Yeah, because our friends are wanted for having psychic powers, not because we... did something. When all this blows over, I don’t want to have a criminal record.”

“Well, it still seems less wrong than nicking and selling your band’s gear,” she sneers. Todd opens his mouth in a cartoonish shocked and offended expression before giving up with a sigh.

“Just don’t expect me to go breaking in somewhere,” he says.

“Okay, okay, stop… bickering,” Farah reprimands them. “Amanda’s got a point, we’re blacklisted anyway, and we need all the resources we can get if we want to pull this off.”

“I can do it,” offers Vogle, who up to this point seemed more interested in watching the TV commercials, but apparently was listening nonetheless.

He must have really needed some mayhem and petty crime in the same way normal people need a nice meal and a good night’s sleep, because as he runs out of the demolished shop with his baseball bat in one hand and a black bag filled to burst in the other, for the first time in the last few days he looks positively content. _I just wreaked more havoc than should be possible for one man and I did something to help my friends, so everything is right in the world_ , his blissful face seems to say. Farah looks a bit less cheerful as she revs the engine and shoots off into the night, glancing over her shoulder.

 

 

Todd excuses himself from the table and as he does so, he has an intense feeling that time is looping back on itself, that he’s circling through the same motions over and over again. Maybe he’s been granted some cosmic insight, or maybe it’s more like déjà vu, just a quirk of the human brain, maybe there are coincidences after all and he shouldn’t always give them meaning. But how can he tell? He feels dissociated from reality, or rather he feels as if what he knew as reality was itself seeping through the cracks, increasingly draining out of his life. Amanda seems to be coping better; maybe it’s because of her pararibulitis, like she’s seen her share of weird shit already and it doesn’t faze her anymore. Well, he apparently has the disease now, too, although mercifully he hasn’t had another attack yet, so we’ll see how –

He gives out a small yelp, startled, as he looks down to wash his hands and on the washbasin, there is the little rubber doll, and he _knows_ it’s the same one he’s left in the car.

“Something’s wrong,” Vogle says back at their table, out of the blue, his gaze now fixed on something in the distance, beyond the diner’s wall, his voice more serious than if he was just commenting the incredibly hideous interior decor. “Someone’s coming!” he exclaims, as he takes a steel pipe from under his jacket and darts outside.

“Wait!” Farah shouts and runs after him. Amanda hesitates for a moment, glancing towards the bathroom before she joins her.

“What’s going on?!” yells Ken behind them, but there is no reply except for the curious or contemptuous stares of other customers and the staff.

Outside, a noise attracts the girls’ attention to the corner of the parking lot, where Vogle and an armed man in black are circling each other warily, sizing each other up. Farah gestures at Amanda to stop and be quiet, creeps up behind the cars and chops the man on the neck, and then it all happens so fast: another man jumps out of a car and grabs Farah from behind, and she kicks and tries to wriggle out of his grasp, and she notices the other one aiming his gun at Vogle, so she puts an extra effort into her struggle and throws her assailant to the ground just as, against Farah’s directions and her own better judgement, Amanda flings herself at the first man, trying to wrench his gun from his hands. He shakes her off and trains the gun on her now, but Farah kicks his legs from under him and shouts at Amanda to go get the others. Amanda nods, gets up from the tarmac and runs to the diner, where Todd has come back from the bathroom and joined Ken at the table, the two of them wearing similar confounded expressions on their faces.

“What did I miss this time?” Todd asks, frowning.

“They’re onto us,” Amanda replies, panting. “Quick, we gotta go.”

“W-what – where –”

“Come on, hurry up!” she rushes them, tugging at their arms. Outside, the others seem to be doing well: Vogle is beating the shit out of one of their attackers, and Farah is holding the other one off at gunpoint, or rather gunpoints, holding a pistol in each hand. She waits for the others to get into the van before she jumps into the driver’s seat and sets off, full speed, slamming down the accelerator even before she fully closes the door.

“Was it them?” says Todd in a panic-stricken voice.

“Yeah,” Amanda confirms. “I’ve seen one of them before. The taller one. He was the one who threatened to shoot me the last time.”

“You guys do that a lot, then?” Ken asks.

“They’re following us,” Farah announces, nodding at the side-view mirror.

“Shit.”

“Oh, my God, we’re done for,” moans Ken, and then cries out and squeezes his eyes shut as Farah manoeuvres sharply between the car in front of them and another one approaching from the opposite lane. She accelerates and meanders through the traffic, horns blaring around them. Todd, holding on to the dashboard for dear life, is having an unwelcome flashback to that one time he let Dirk give him a lift; Vogle lets out a joyful “woo-hoo!”, but even Amanda silences him with a terrified look as she digs her fingers into the seat’s upholstery and mouths silent curses. But they make it through, and the five of them breathe out in unison as the car finally comes to a halt with a jolt, half a mile into a beaten dirt track into the woods.

“I think we’ve lost them,” says Farah. “But we’re gonna need a new car.”

“Shit,” wheezes Todd, too stupefied by their escape to make a more intelligent comment.

“How did they even track us?” Amanda asks. Todd gathers his thoughts somehow and hazards a guess.

“Dunno, CCTV?” he says hesitantly. “Or maybe they can track Vogle somehow. Maybe they have a psychic working for them who can predict where we are. I don’t know.”

“Is that even possible?”

“Well, if yes, it hardly matters if we get a new car or not,” says Todd with resignation, and still feeling pretty shaken, he drops to the ground and rests his back against the van. Ken decides this is as good a time as any to say what’s been on his mind ever since he’s joined them.

“If we do get a new car, though, shouldn’t we get one less, um… visible?”

“That’s a good idea,” Amanda seconds him. “Why did you even paint it pink in the first place?”

“Reverse psychology,” Farah replies, and four incomprehensible stares answer her. “Look,” she explains patiently. “If you were hiding, you would choose something camouflaged, right? So, if you look at this from the other side’s perspective, if you were looking for someone who’s hiding, you would not expect them to be hiding in something like this, so if you see something like this, you don’t think it’s suspicious, so you would just… dismiss it. In theory.”

“That’s a good theory,” Ken reassures her.

“Yeah, it was working great until someone decided to confront them and bust our cover,” Todd says, looking with spite at Vogle, who hangs up his head for a moment, but then looks up in defiance.

“We had them!” he argues. “We stomped their asses!”

“Yeah, and now they’ve gone and reported us, and so much for our stupid disguises and our stupid pink car. We can’t do it like this. We have to be smart about this, understand?”

Vogle nods and, on an afterthought, goes rifling through the bag he has retrieved from the Rowdy Three’s van until he triumphantly pulls out a bundle of what appears to be a camouflage net.

“For hidin’”, he says, and holds it out to Todd like a peacemaking offering and Todd cannot help but smile, and also sigh deeply. It turns out to be big enough to cover the car, and make it a bit less of an eyesore and a dead giveaway.

“Are we just gonna, like, camp out here now?” Amanda asks.

“We have to wait out,” Farah says. “Until the CIA agents, or whoever they were, go away.”

“How will we know that they’ve gone away?” Farah purses her lips as she’s thinking on a good answer.

“Um… How are you doing, Ken?” He’s sitting cross-legged, the laptop on his knees providing the perfect opportunity to change the subject.

“The network connection is atrocious out here,” he mutters, “But I’m getting there.”

“Good. That’s good.”

 

 

Another town, another cheap motel room. Their cash is running out, and they don’t want to risk using their credit cards, but fortunately they still have that Ken’s, or rather Bart’s, bundle of money which they all silently agree not to ask too much about. Exhausted after a day of hiking, hitch-hiking and one final ride in a jolting old bus, they drop on their beds as soon as they get their rooms. Amanda turns on the TV out of habit – back home, in her old life that now seems ages ago, despite it only being a couple of days, she used to watch TV all the time, not even paying much attention to it, just because she was stuck home and didn’t have much else to do, and at least it kept her mind occupied. Now, with the usual disinterest, she stares at a woman dressed up as a fairy tale princess, prancing on the screen and repeating incomprehensible slogans that don’t seem to have anything to do with the advertised product, whatever it might be.

“Everything is connected,” whispers the woman on the screen before chugging down an entire bottle of expensive-looking perfume. That seem to pique Farah’s interest – after all, she’s heard that one enough times.

“Wait, what?” she mutters, turning her attention to the TV, but the commercial has already ended, and Amanda didn’t seem to even register it. Farah shakes her head as if to clear it.

It’s not long before their tiredness wins over their anxiety and they begin to drift off into sleep; they only realise that as they are awakened by a triumphant cry from the adjacent room, and frantic knocking on their door. As Amanda opens it, Todd almost falls inside.

“Ken has found something,” he announces, excited. At these news, Amanda and Farah get up at lighting speed and follow him next door.

“The old Blackwing Project was stationed in New Mexico,” Ken begins when everyone gathers around him. “But the place has been disused for fifteen years. Now, I’m not one hundred percent sure about this yet, but I think I know where it’s been relocated. I don’t have access to the main archives, but I’ve seen some emails and memos, it looks like something has happened then –”

“We broke out,” Vogle interjects.

“Exactly! So – so maybe some others escaped too, and the whole project has either been shut down, or it went so top secret that no one knew about it apart from some selected few. But, it seems like it’s been dug up recently, reviewed or something, and there was some movement around a different base of operations…”

“Where?!” Farah and Amanda ask simultaneously, their patience expiring at once.

“Near Spokane.”

“So, not Area 51 after all,” Amanda comments with a hint of disappointment in her tone.

 

 

Todd sits on the back of a stolen jeep, drinking a can of beer that was probably stolen too, since he’s got it from Vogle, and tries to muster up some more excitement. They are Getting Closer, after all. But whilst Getting Closer is a most desirable state, whilst he is very happy to be Getting Closer, since it means (hopefully) getting Dirk back and also (hopefully) an end to all this living on the run madness, it also carries a lot of fear about what will happen when and after they actually Get There. There is a voice in the back of his head saying that they should maybe start thinking about what to do then, but he tries to drown it in more beer and positive thinking. Clouds gather on the horizon like a metaphor so cheap that he spits onto the ground in disgust.

A gust of wind hits him like a sledgehammer to the chest, and the first drops of rain burrow into his flesh, cold and sharp. He fumbles in his pockets for the pills, but his hands don’t cooperate, and he gasps and grabs Vogle’s shoulder as the world spins and _everything fucking hurts_.

He is only partially aware of Vogle leaning over him, his senses overridden with this odd sensation, almost like electricity coursing through his body (and he can tell, thank you very much; it is a feeling that he has as of late became unpleasantly familiar with), but not burning, quite the opposite – it’s cold, so cold, it makes his insides churn and his hair stand on ends with static and it prickles all over, and it feels as if his very soul was escaping through every pore of his skin; but it’s better than the agony of being burned alive or cut to pieces, he concludes, falling softly onto his back and gasping with relief, as everything slowly fades out and –

The images flash so quickly, he barely registers them, and even if, he does so only on some subconscious level. He stares down the barrel of Bart’s gun and he stares down the barrel of Farah’s gun, he sees a woman picking up a rock and a clown on a field, he sees Dirk who says, “I’m sorry”, and a highway between the pines and a road sign (is this important? will he remember it?) and a mountain, he sees Martin snarling and attacking and numbers on a screen and Lydia Spring and –

It ends as abruptly as it started, and escapes him like a dream you unsuccessfully try not to forget after you wake up. He opens his eyes to see four faces looking down at him, three concerned and one inappropriately satisfied.

“Did you have another attack?”

“Yeah,” he replies in a hoarse voice. _What do you think it was?_ he adds in his mind. “And…”

“And what?”

“I saw something,” he says.

“Did you have, like, a vision?” asks Amanda, staring at him intensely.

“Yeah, something like that,” he says, and she nods, pursing her lips. “Images flashing, I can’t remember them properly, it all happened so fast, but I saw Dirk and Bart and… Lydia I think?”

“Lydia?”

“I… I don’t know,” he sighs.

“Okay…” speaks Ken in a small voice. “Would someone please tell me what the hell just happened?!”

 

* * *

 

It’s not the cold, it’s not the physical discomfort, it’s not the stinging fresh cut on his face and the dull, but unrelenting ache in his still healing shoulder; it’s not even the fact of being back here or the insistent thoughts of what they might do to him that are the worst. It’s being alone again, again forced to leave someone behind, sitting in another locked room all on his own, today indistinguishable from yesterday and tomorrow always uncertain. It would be a lie to say that he is not worried about himself; he is, in fact, petrified, all the worst-case scenarios going through his head, and in none of them he escapes unscathed. But he is also very, very worried about his friends, who might be hurt, or getting in trouble trying to find him, or – much worse for him, but kind of better for them – perhaps thinking that he has just rushed off onto another crazy adventure, leaving them to their old, normal lives. No, they wouldn’t, would they; they’ll come looking for him, and it really cannot end well…


	7. They never forgot

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, first things first: I'm sorry. I'm so, so sorry. I feel like a complete jerk. Won't bore you with excuses, it's the usual, writer's block, life a bit hectic on top of that, etc.  
> But I'm back, and hold on to your seats, babes, 'cause there's some actual action for once (!), incredible. Also speaking of, this chapter ends on a bit of a big cliffhanger thingy, so you might wanna consider waiting for the rest (I should get it done in a week, but I'm doing my BSci exams now, so you know, no promises) - proceed at your own risk, and so on. Heed the Archive Warning, too (:  
> And sorry again. Have fun.

_Everything led me here. To you. To this. Everything is connected..._

 

Wilson gets up, circles the desk and sits on the top, right next to him. She’s not going to pull off the charmer trick this time, it wouldn’t work; no, this time she’s simply aiming to be disconcerting, and hell, it seems to be working splendidly.

“You could have spared yourself all this trouble, you know,” she says with mock concern. “But it doesn’t matter. You’re here now anyway,” she adds, a half-smile on her face. It’s hard to tell how genuine it is, but then again, Dirk has never been great at reading people.

“What do you want from me?” he asks, all wide-open eyes and innocence, and it’s Wilson’s turn to skip a beat. _For real? What do you think we want? Are you taking me for a fool? Or are you daft or what? God, I thought these people were supposed to be psychic, or something?_

“Call it a… reassessment,” she replies, reminding herself that the project has been neglected for over a decade after all, so maybe everyone has really put it behind them. “You didn’t actually think that we forgot about you, did you?”

He turns his head, avoiding her gaze. Thinking back. He remembers the first months after his escape, constantly looking behind his back, afraid they’re always just behind the corner, ready to take him away again. But then he gradually came to a conclusion that if they were going to find him, they would already have done so, and that maybe he’s finally free. He was still running, though, in a way, if not from, then towards something, never settling down, and he’s never quite shed that lingering fear and expectation that one day what’s been left behind will come around.

“No,” he admits meekly.

 

* * *

 

Bart is sitting on her own in her part of the room, facing the pane of undoubtedly reinforced glass separating her from the other woman, and she rolls her eyes and stifles a laugh. All these years, and they still don’t understand, even though it’s so simple. There are only two possibilities: either they have nothing to fear, or a bunker wouldn’t protect them, and it’s not up to her to decide which it’s going to be, and yet they always act if it was.

“Why did you kill Vincent Gifford?” the woman asks, drawing Bart’s attention. Bart frowns and tilts her head.

“Who the hell is Vincent Gifford?” Bart retorts, pretty sure she’s never heard the name before.

“Oh, please,” Wilson admonishes her. “We have the recording from the security tape. We know you did it… in a way. There’s no point in denying it.”

“Okay.” Bart shrugs. “Maybe. But, you know, I have killed a lot of people, and, like, I don’t always remember them, or I don’t always know their names, you know, so…”

“He was one of your latest… victims. The man ran over by a car in front of the…” Wilson pauses to check the file on her desk. “Perriman Grand Hotel in Seattle.” Bart nods, remembering now.

“So? Why did you choose to kill him?”

Bart snorts and shakes her head. “I don’t _choose_ to kill anyone,” she says. “The universe tells me what to do. I’m like a… a leaf on the wind. Or like… a bullet on the wind. Get it? Because I kill people?” she lets out a short, rasped laugh. “I go and kill people, I don’t need to know why. If I just… felt like killing him there, that means he had to die, right? I mean, I don’t always know why, but I know who – I mean I am always – I am usually right...” she falters there, suddenly losing confidence, her last statement sounding more like a plea, _tell me I’m not wrong_. Wilson raises one perfectly arched eyebrow.

“If you tried that line of defence in court, I don’t think you’d get very far,” she comments with that watered-down half-smile of hers. “But luckily, I know you’re telling the truth – more or less. Because I know what you are. It’s what you do, isn’t it? It’s all you do.” She looks into the papers again. Ever since you were a child, there were… incidents happening around you. Deadly incidents. Too many to be a coincidence. And they were oddly specific, too – I mean, most of the victims had a criminal record, or ties to some scandal… do you see yourself as an instrument of justice?”

“I told you, I don’t choose the targets.”

“How do you know who’s your target, then?”

“A hunch. I see them in dreams, sometimes,” explains Bart. Wilson sighs.

“I don’t want to be here,” Bart says out of the blue. “There are no targets here.”

It takes some effort for Wilson not to show how relieved she is, but her unshakable façade remains intact.

“At least not yet,” Bart adds casually.

 

* * *

 

Wilson regards the man carefully, the whole six feet of barely suppressed anger. He adjusts the horn-rimmed glasses perched atop his broken nose, and snarls at her. He is restless, his body never settling down, he’s constantly shifting position and stretching and tilting his head and all the time his eyes are fixed on her. He regards her too, you see; they’ve never met before.

“I have to say, you seem a bit more reasonable than I’ve always imagined,” she says.

 

* * *

 

It’s a different, new place, but it just as well could have been the same. Even the walls are painted the same despicable, faded colour, the standard issue Secret Government Facility Blue-Green No.4. The supervisors (are they still calling themselves that?), the agents and the doctors (as it turns out, Ximénez is still working on the project; his hair is grey and his face looks older, but he has the same awful personality as before) are a lot less gentle, though, and Dirk begins to realize that it wasn’t so bad last time, when he was a child; _because_ he was a child, they had some scruples that they don’t see a need for anymore. But when he curls up on his bed and cries quietly, so that no one can hear him, it feels as if he’s gone back in time, once again a little boy. So essentially, everything is distressingly familiar.

The only sliver of hope appears when one of the tests – though “interrogation” might be a more appropriate term – is unexpectedly interrupted. The woman looks flustered, uncomfortable, her gaze fixed on the tips of her shoes, avoiding eye contact with both Dirk desperately trying to catch her attention and Wilson looking daggers at her.

“I am so sorry to interrupt,” she says quickly, quietly, “but I thought you need to know right away–”

“Agent… Harada, yes?” the woman nods, fidgeting where she stands, as if impatient to deliver her message and leave. “What is it? I’m quite busy, so cut to the chase.”

Harada replies in a hushed voice, but she’s not quite out of earshot; Dirk manages to catch her words, and he has to restrain himself from jumping up to her, asking her to confirm what he thinks she means, as she whispers nervously:

“They’re coming here. Like I told you before. It’s tomorrow.”

Rationally, she can be talking about anything and anyone, probably – judging by how Wilson seems taken aback – some top brass arriving for an inspection, or something; what are the odds that his friends would be coming for him? And even if they were, how likely would it be to make such an impression on anyone here? But the thought appears in his mind nonetheless, and since it does, he cannot shake it off.

“Please focus. We haven’t finished yet,” Wilson snaps, bringing him out of his reverie, and he realizes they are alone in the room again.

“I keep telling you –” he begins, but she stops him with a gesture.

“No. I’m having none of that. I won’t believe that Riggins has spent so much time and resources on you without reason.” Actually, she is now inclined to believe just that, but she decides to give Project Icarus one last chance. “So, show me what you got.”

 

* * *

 

The car almost comes to a halt, the headlights slowly picking out a road sign.

“This is it,” Ken confirms in a hushed voice. Amanda’s face appears between the front seats.

“Are we there yet?” she whispers, anxious but clearly excited.

“Not yet, but we can’t drive any further.” Farah dives under her seat for her holdall. “Let’s start getting ready, and, um, discuss our… plan again.”

“Wow.” Amanda gives a quiet whistle as she goes through the contents of the bag: a few bottles of water, some food, a bundle of military-looking clothes, a first aid kit, an unopened pack of handgun bullets, a torch…

“Farah, if there is ever a zombie apocalypse or something, I wanna be with you when it happens.”

“Um… thanks?”

“When did you get all this?” Todd asks, incredulous. “Or do you just carry this stuff around with you all the time?”

“I… bought some of this when we were on the road, but… generally, yes, I like to be prepared for anything. You know.”

Amanda flashes her an impish smile as she smooths out her black jumper and slips an 8-inch spring knife into her pocket. “Should we wear, like, balaclavas or something?” she asks.

“What’s the point, they already know our faces,” mutters Todd.

“Yeah, but it would be cool?” Amanda counterpoints. “Also, I’d feel slightly more… professional.”

“Speaking of,” she adds on an afterthought, “What’s the actual plan again?”

“We’re relying on Ken to lead the way,” Farah begins. “And to get us in.”

Ken nods. “Okay,” says his mouth. _Ohmygodohmy_ , say his eyes.

“We find them and we’re out, as fast as possible. We try not to kill anyone and not to get noticed.” Vogle nods vigorously, but Farah wonders just how much of that he has understood. “We get back here, into the car, and away. Any more questions?”

“That’s our plan?” Amanda exhales deeply. “Okay.”

“Good plan,” Todd reassures them without much conviction.

 

 

“A distraction would be nice,” Todd mutters as the five of them crouch on the edge of the forest, out of sight. The stretch of tarmac separating them from the barbed wire-topped gate might just as well be a mile wide – it certainly seems so at the moment. For a few seconds, they all seem to hold their breath and wait for a miracle. In a way typical for miracles, surprising even when asked for, as convenient as baffling, it happens, in the form of a woman suddenly walking out into view, passing them so closely it’s amazing they haven’t noticed her before. A beam of light picks out her silhouette – the smallish, elderly woman holding something in her hand. Without warning, she throws whatever it is – a rock? a hand grenade? – over the fence, hitting the soldier patrolling the grounds with force and precision astounding for someone of her unassuming physique, before he even manages to finish yelling “who’s there?!”. He recoils and takes out his gun, looking around, as if not immediately believing who his assailant is.

“Come here! Hands up and come here!” he barks at the woman, fortunately loud enough to drown out Todd’s a tad too loud “what the hell?!”.

“Come on, that’s our cue!” hisses Farah, tugging at Todd’s sleeve, and together with the others they run across the driveway; Todd, almost as distracted as the unfortunate guard, eventually concludes that it couldn’t have been a hand grenade, because there was no explosion, but in any case, all hell is undoubtedly due to break loose, any minute now, and then he becomes aware of Ken fumbling with the combination lock to the gate and Vogle getting ready to just smash it, and something click in his brain and he stares at it, transfixed.

“Hey, man! Snap out of it!”

“I’ve seen it,” he whispers back. “I know this. I just have to remember or just…” he takes a deep breath and punches in the code; the lock opens with a buzz.

“How did you…” mutters Ken in disbelief.

“A hunch,” Todd replies with a small shrug.

“Nevermind,” rushes them Farah, “Let’s go!”

 

“Psst. Ken. Can you navigate around the complex?”

“Um…”

“Can you?”

“I don’t have a floor plan, if that’s what you’re asking. I…”

“Oh, great.”

“Shush!”

 

As the events unfold, they do so at once, synchronized.

The woman once, to some, known as Lamia emerges seemingly out of nowhere. She takes aim carefully and throws a rock over the fence twice as tall as her, hitting a patrolling guard right on the head. She doesn’t flinch, she doesn’t bat an eye as the flummoxed man raises his weapon and yells at her, only to turn around sharply as he hears scuttled footsteps behind him, and suddenly another blunt object thrown through the air collides with his face and finishes the job, knocking him out on the spot. Unabashed, Lamia walks slowly through a now open gateway and pick up her rock.

“My rock,” she whispers affectionately.

The woman known to some as Marzanna, to some as Bart, and to some only as that blur of messy hair, scrawny limbs and deadly intent, seen by them right before what they know doesn’t matter anymore, stands in a corridor, panting heavily. She is alone for now – the four dead men on the floor don’t count – and she leans against the wall, steadying herself, still tightly clutching the broken chair leg, covered in blood and other gooey stuff, and an odd hair here and there. They must have put something in the food or the water, because she cannot think straight or walk straight, as if her skull and legs were stuffed with cotton wool. And it’s bad, because she has no time to stick around; she has to get out and find Ken and…

But first, there is someone else she must kill.

The woman who has only introduced herself to him as Wilson shoots a glance towards the door. For the first time since Dirk has met her she seems… not shaken, she hasn’t completely lost her cool yet, but she’s nervous, he can see that clearly. The commotion outside the room gets too loud to ignore, and Wilson storms out, slamming the door behind her, leaving Dirk alone. It takes him good five minutes (he can tell by the clock on the wall), during which neither Wilson nor anyone else comes in, to finally summon up the courage and try the door. It’s open. He slowly, gingerly pokes his head out, and immediately retreats at the sight of four heavily armed men running down the corridor. Another minute. Check again. It’s empty now, and somehow that’s worse, because he no longer has an excuse to hide inside, which he rather feels like doing now. With a deep breath and fingers crossed on both hands, he steps out and starts running, really, _really_ hoping he’s running in the right direction.

And that’s when, expected but unbeknown to Dirk, his friends break in, like five anxious, yet determined drops of fuel jumping right into the fire.

They notice that something’s going on pretty quick; the alarms, for example, are a dead giveaway. The state of moderate chaos they find inside is in a way convenient – everyone seems preoccupied elsewhere – but also dangerous, since everyone is also on high alert. Todd tightens the grip on his gun – well, Farah’s gun. Well, the gun that Farah has taken off the CIA guy and gave to him, asking if he can use it and taking his noncommittal grunt-moan-sound reply for enough of a “yes”. He tries not to think about the fact that has never fired a gun in his life, and doesn’t want to change that. He tries not to think that splitting up was probably the worst idea they could come up with, well, second only to storming a government facility, which is now probably in some sort of a lockdown and even if they somehow find Dirk and the others before they get arrested or shot on the spot, they’ll never get out and…

“Dude, are you okay?” asks Amanda quietly, right into his ear, making him jump. His first thought, right after the one about an imminent heart attack, is that she seems to be enjoying herself well enough; but then he immediately knows that’s not true. She’s keeping her cool, alright, but there is panic in her wide-open eyes, and Todd adds another point to the long mental list of Things He’s Currently Worrying About: oh God, please don’t let her have an attack now. God, he corrects himself quickly, don’t let me get an attack now either.

He is not sure what he has expected. His mind has painted him pictures of a grimy prison, a second Guantanamo Bay deep in the forest, or a futuristic-looking place out of a sci-fi TV show, but it’s neither. With the hideous grey-green-blue-ish walls and the rows of identical doors it looks kind of like a hospital, if the director was somewhat crazy about security. Vogle disappears off into another corridor, and after the usual noises – stomp, shot, shout, thud – he calls “clear!” and the siblings yank the doors open, one after another, all empty, hopelessly empty, _shit, this is a nightmare_ , Todd mutters, and then stops in his tracks as the next one appears to be closed. He tries the code lock again, but it looks like the repertoire of Todd Brotzman’s Newfound Superpowers has expired, and the door doesn’t budge until subjected to a sufficient amount of a certain young man’s furious kicks and punches, one gunshot from an impatient girl and a half-hearted shove with Todd’s shoulder, which frankly hurt a lot more than it usually seems to in the movies.

There is someone inside, sprawled across a camp bed, sleeping like a child through the whole fuss and clamour. But it isn’t Dirk or Bart or any of the Rowdies; the strange woman’s face is decidedly, and disappointingly, unfamiliar. They stand over her for a while, unsure what to do – take her or leave her?

“We can’t just leave her,” Todd hisses and shakes the woman gently, and then a bit more unceremoniously, but she remains unperturbed.

“Come on, come on, come on…” he repeats desperately, and still in vain. Vogle looks out onto the corridor.

“We gotta go,” he says, but Todd’s not listening.

“He’s right,” says Amanda. “We can’t stick around. And she’ll probably be safer here for now anyway.” Todd glances over his shoulder as his sister takes him by the arm and leads him outside.

 

They find Dirk eventually, after what feels like eternity. Or rather he finds them. Or rather he runs into them, and skids to a halt inches from Todd’s face. He seems alright – out of breath, wide-eyed and ruffled, but generally unharmed – and the surge of relief that washes over Todd makes his head spin. He breathes out and smiles, hell, he’s grinning like an idiot and so are the others, and they pull Dirk into a hug, and Dirk closes his eyes and for a brief moment he feels as if it was all over and everything was right in the world again, and none of the four of them notices in time the man coming from around the corner.

Bang.

Todd could swear that time is slowing down, kindly allowing him those few extra seconds to process what has just happened.

“Oh, shit, no,” he mutters almost soundlessly.


	8. The splash, the forsaken cry

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, wouldn't ya know, it's the last chapter, where shit goes down and then, my dear reader, in an attempt at comfort after the hurt everyone who's still alive gets fluffy with each other.

Somewhere deep beneath the surface, all of Farah’s instincts are going haywire. Common sense, better judgement, self-preservation, the whole lot of them are running around screaming like overexcited pre-schoolers, but the noise is muffled, like ringing of an alarm heard from another room. Outwardly, she seems cool and collected, focused, although there is the actual literal ringing of an alarm coming from another room and it’s giving her a splitting bloody headache, and every now and again she forgets about the calming breathing method and shutting out the intrusive thoughts, and the realization hits her like a truck that all of this is a fundamentally, monumentally bad idea.

She glances at Ken nervously skulking behind her and concludes for about a hundredth time that for someone who used to work for gangsters and hang out with an assassin, he seems remarkably not cut out for this sort of thing at all. He is also the one to say what’s been on Farah’s mind for some time now; he is the first one to acknowledge it.

“This is pointless,” he says pleadingly. “Maybe we should go back, you know, retreat. Rethink this.”

Farah stops and looks around another identical corridor. The place is huge, but mostly empty, disused, which is definitely an advantage – she wouldn’t fancy a shootout – but it also makes the whole enterprise seem utterly hopeless and generally disappointing. Pointless, yeah, that’s the word… She inhales sharply, takes a step back and presses her back against the wall, dragging Ken with her to hide behind a corner. She presses a finger to his lips, but unnecessarily, because he’s heard it too: footsteps, running, hushed voices, a different, heavier set of footsteps running… Farah peeks out and seeing that, as they say, the coast is clear, she slowly makes her way along the wall, her pistol raised and unlocked. She comes from around a bend in the cross-section of passages, a familiar figure appearing in her sights.

The man notices her with the corner of his eye, and his focus falters, but he still fires first; Farah’s finger moves to press the trigger with only a second’s delay, but she never takes that shot.

 

What happens next is chaos, a disorderly scattering of lines that were barely, just about, drawn into a point of convergence.

A bullet whizzes past Farah’s ear, a cobweb-shaped crack blooming in the wall behind her; it has already punched clean through the man’s head, and as he falls to the floor, another familiar figure takes his place, but she, for a change, is a welcome sight.

“Bart!” Ken exclaims happily from behind Farah’s back.

This happens in a blink of an eye, but behind the corner Dirk has already slumped in Todd’s grasp, slipping out both literally and figuratively. Vogle’s saying something, Amanda is too, but it isn’t coming across; nothing is reaching his awareness apart from the sensation of blood wet and warm on his fingers. There is no pattern and nothing makes sense and none of this is right.

 

Vogle turns around and runs, with barely a word and no little explanation; Amanda calls after him to wait, but he doesn’t stop. She hesitates, looking between him and Dirk and Todd and Farah coming up to them and…

“Vogle, wait!” she shouts again, and goes after him. She catches up with him at the end of the corridor, and grabs him by his jacket sleeve.

“Vogle, wait,” she repeats a little hoarsely. “What’s going on?”

Vogle shakes his head. “Something,” he says. “Something’s up. And they others… I think they’re close. This way,” he adds after a brief pause, and sets off again, dragging Amanda with him. _Good_ , she thinks, even though Vogle’s “something’s up” didn’t sound good at all. But finding the others does – well, it’s what they’re here for, but also, she knows with them she’ll feel safe. Even if there was a whole bunch of bad guys coming at them –

Even if there is –

Vogle turns around and shouts and pushes her aside and they fire –

There is blood all over her and she can’t tell whose it is, and she begins to scream.

 

Her scream seems shrill and loud enough to break through walls, or at least crack a window or two; but it’s her pain that they pick up first, feeling it before they are close enough to hear her voice. She falls on her knees, bent half double, sick and terrified, the dam has cracked and burst and the emotions that have been building up for days on end come flooding out, and they feel it like a tidal wave, and even the soldiers are unsettled, put out by the outburst, perhaps even a bit guilty, a bit sorry. So, when they come, they are at an advantage.

Cross and Gripps, as if following an unspoken command, throw themselves into a fight, a flurry of movement; Martin comes up to Amanda. He helps her up, and she gratefully clings to him, burying her face in his old denim jacket. It’s smelly and tattered but it’s comforting, and her crying subsides. Over her shoulder, his stare is fixed on Vogle’s motionless body lying on the floor.

“Keep your head down, drummer girl,” he whispers in her ear, slowly letting go of her; she stumbles and curls up cowering in an open doorway as a machine gun barrage hits the ceiling, showering her with splinters, and the light fixture explodes, plunging the corridor into semi-darkness.

Vogle is dead and Martin is _angry_. Not with that usual manic energy of the Rowdies, that casual madness without being mad, with howling cheerfully into the night and the kicks you get when a heavy object in your hands connects with something more fragile. No, this is _real_ , and in place of the joyous, mindless destruction there is cold fury. There is no laughter, no incoherent shouting; the sound he makes, that hoarse staccato, is words, a barked litany of grievances past and present, and a promise of revenge. The stolen rifle he holds is long out of bullets, so he just swings it around like a bat, a low grunt and a growl escaping his mouth every time it connects with the skull of another of the soldiers. His glasses glint with the reflected flashes, hiding his eyes. Fresh blood, still wet, speckles his bleached hair and blanched face, and glistens on his clothes, and on the barrel of the rifle that he raises over his head again. He bares his teeth at an approaching guard, who stops in his tracks and prepares to fire, but Martin is faster, and the man drops to the ground, and the last thing he registers before he blacks out is the strange blue light enveloping him like flames, and the almost inhuman face above him.

“Todd! Where did Amanda go?” Farah hisses urgently, shaking his shoulder.

“What?” he replies, looking up and around, dazed. “Amanda? Oh, my god, I –”

“Okay,” says Farah calmingly. She represses her own urge to scream and maybe bang her head against the wall – Todd’s distressed stupor is forcing her to get a grip on herself and the situation. “Okay. I’ll find her, alright? Todd? Todd, look at me. It’s gonna be fine. Just go. You two guys, just get him out of here.” As she motions at Ken to come over, she notices Bart sauntering off casually, and feels control slipping out of her fingers like a wet bar of soap.

“Bart, where are you going now? Bart? Bart, we could use some help here!” she shouts, in frustration raising her voice above the cautionary whisper, and then deciding it doesn’t matter.

“I have someone else to kill!” Bart calls, peeking from around the corner.

“Of course,” Farah sighs with resignation. “Nevermind that, go,” she says to Todd and Ken, wincing as if in pain herself as she watches them lift Dirk clumsily off the floor. “Take the car, we’ll find you later.”

She should escort them. She should also find Amanda. She should also probably keep an eye on Bart… She stands in the middle of the T-shaped junction, literally and figuratively at crossroads. Well, Bart can take care of herself, Amanda has Vogle to protect her (Farah still doesn’t entirely trust him, but his fierce loyalty to the girl is undeniable, just as are his fighting skills), but the boys… she runs to catch up with them, which isn’t hard – burdened with a prone body of a slight, but still a grown adult man they can’t move too fast. Only when, after what feels like a hundred years at least, they reach their van parked on the side of the road, and she persuades them to go without her straight to the nearest hospital (she must still find the others, and they cannot afford to wait), praying that they are clear-headed enough to drive, she allows herself a very small breath of relief, and a very small scream into the void, both doing wonders for her spirit. She carefully picks her way back into the complex.

 

Wilson’s heels are sharp enough to click in the rhythm of her powerful stride, even on the lino. Her pinned up hair and immaculate suit are only slightly ruffled, and she hold the gun in both hands, ready to fire, and she thinks, _if only those idiots from Langley could see me now_ , and she doesn’t scathe herself for that unprofessional thought. She’s on top, she will sort this mess out. She knows it’s the adrenaline rush making her feel nearly invincible, but she won’t argue, thinking herself in total control up until the bullet from Bart’s gun exits right between her eyes, and she topples face forward.

 

On the driveway, Farah finds herself caught in the sights of a tank, and she stares down the muzzle as the size of her face, rooted to the spot until the driver clambers out, and then she’s just a bit, but only a bit, surprised. In another extraordinary feat of persuasion, she talks Bart into stealing one of the army jeeps instead. She wants to go looking for the others, but Bart insists she has already seen them leave, and Farah can’t help but believe her – the woman seems as earnest and honest as she is crazy. And indeed, Amanda and the Rowdies are waiting for her near the agreed meeting point; they all clamber into one car and drive off together, away, dawn breaking over the treetops. Farah doesn’t ask where Vogle is.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, at the suggestion of my beta, I split it here into a chapter and a teeny tiny epilogue because there's a big jump in time here, so. Go on for the rest.


	9. How everything turns away/ Quite leisurely from the disaster

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, that's definitely the end.

_Only constants are me and gravity. I'm special that way._

 

Farah walks into the bar looking around, nervously but discreetly, checking if she’s not being followed, observing the patrons and the staff. Nothing suspicious, she decides, but still doesn’t let her guard all down. That man, that old colonel with a greying moustache and tired eyes who approached all of them in the past week to make them sign a non-disclosure agreement said that they needn’t worry, that the operation has been shut down for good, all hushed up and no charges pressed, but she still hasn’t relaxed. She notices Amanda in one of the booths, and gives her a small wave.

“I had to get away,” Amanda says quietly after the hellos and hugs and first sips of ice cold beer.

“You’re more than welcome to stay with us if you want,” says Farah, putting a comforting hand on hers.

“I don’t know,” Amanda sighs. “It’s been hard on us.” Us. Amanda hasn’t known the Rowdies for long, but they were already a second family to her – a family now a member smaller. “You know, it doesn’t feel like too much fun these days. But I think I’m gonna stay with the boys for a while. I think…” she pauses, idly drawing lines on the perspiring glass. “I think it’s gonna be better if we stick together.”

“Just take care, okay?” Farah says, managing a smile. “And if you ever wanna come back, or just visit…”

“Sure.” Amanda smiles back, and pats the seat next to her. Catching her meaning, Farah gets up from across the table and sits down next to her, Amanda immediately pulling her into a hug.

“Your hair grows back nice,” she says.

“Thanks.”

 

* * *

 

In the car, Dirk is unusually silent; then again, he’s just been discharged from the hospital – again – after suffering through enough shit to ruffle his normally unwaveringly cheerful demeanour. But damn, the guy’s a survivor, and though worried, Todd firmly believes that Dirk’s idiot smile is coming as inevitable as a sunrise.

“Todd,” Dirk speaks in a small voice instead, staring at the dashboard, “I forgot to say… I’m sorry.”

“For what?!”

“That Mexican Funeral T-shirt you gave me, and I… well, it got kinda ruined, with all the… blood and… stuff,” he explains. Todd gapes at him and almost runs a red light.

“I don’t care!” he manages to wheeze out. “It’s not the T-shirt I was worried about, you know,” he adds more softly, shooting his friend a long glance before focusing back on the road. As they get closer to Springsborough, he becomes so visibly excited that Dirk’s mood lifts a little.

“Come on, it’s ready!” he says even before the car comes to a full stop.

“What is?”

“What do you think? Oh, just… get out of the car,” he prompts, after of course getting out first, circling the bonnet, opening the door and extending a hand to help Dirk out, grinning widely for the two of them.

“We’ve waited for you to do the honours, open up the place. Come on! Look, we got the brass plaque, like you wanted,” he announces with pride. And there it is, on the door to what used to be Dorian’s apartment, a shiny sign reading: _Dirk Gently’s Holistic Detective Agency_ , exactly as he’s always imagined it. Even the door handle feels nice; he has never felt particularly enthusiastic about door handles, but he feels that he might just begin to, pressing this very nice handle on the door to his very own detective agency.

Bang.

Dirk flinches, but relaxes when he sees Farah wiping the champagne froth from her eyes, and hears everyone cheer. Todd and Farah and Amanda and the Rowdy Three and Bart’s friend and –

He flinches again seeing Bart, but she seems uncharacteristically not murderous, her knife pointed not at him, but at the large cake sitting on an elegant desk in the middle of the room.

“See,” Todd picks up the thread immediately, pointing at the desk, “Me or Farah would sit here, as the client enters, we greet them, before you weird them out and scare them away. Then your office is down there, behind that door. Here. Farah’s gun stash is behind the false panel on this wall; if you press that light switch here, it opens, let me show you, see? So, when you want to turn the lights on, you must remember to use the other switch. And here, check this out…” Todd’s excited babble drifts off into the mingled conversation.

 

They wake up next morning with hangovers of various magnitude, yet none capable of completely smothering the shared sense of blissful, serene content, unbroken even by feeling a tad nauseous as they catch a whiff of the decidedly odd-smelling attempt at a breakfast. Dirk’s already up and about, presumably because still being on medication, he couldn’t drink. Too much. Gingerly opening one eye, Todd notices that Bart and Ken are gone, and he tries to remember if they left yesterday or today. The rest of the company is still here, sprawled on the sofas and rugs.

“The phone will ring, and we will have a client. I’m certain of it,” Dirk announces happily, and a little too loudly for everyone’s liking.

A phone indeed rings, jabbing Todd with a pang of headache, but it’s not the one that Dirk holds in his hands, staring at it intently; it’s Farah’s, and she picks it up, grumbling.

“Yes? Yes, it’s me. Yes, but… how do you know that? Oh? Oh, right. Sorry. Sure. Um, just a moment, please,” she says, turning to Dirk, who, having no sense of decency, has moved closer to eavesdrop, and is making faces at her. “It’s for you,” she mouths.

“Me?” he asks in a theatrical whisper, practically wrenching the phone out of her hand. “Hello? Yes, Dirk Gently here, how can I help you? Yes? Well – well of course!” he exclaims, and then he suddenly makes an expression that in a cartoon would be accompanied by a lightbulb appearing over his head.

“Is this a name for a cat?” he asks gravely, and the answer must have been satisfactory, because a wide grin spreads across his face, and he gives his friends a thumbs-up. Todd seems nonplussed, and opens his mouth to speak, but Farah shushes him promptly. Dirk finishes the conversation with a couple of enthusiastic nods, hangs up and throws the phone at Farah, who even in her current state catches it expertly.

“We have a client,” he announces, positively beaming with pride. “A rich client, I might add. A rich client who desperately needs our help.” Todd is sure he has never heard anyone put so much joy into the word “desperately”.

“That sounds great,” he says a little weakly. To be perfectly honest, he’s been counting on at least a week of some peace and quiet, and it would do Dirk some good to rest, too, but it seems like the universe has other plans. “Is he coming here?”

“No, she has invited us to visit her. You know how those rich people are, they like having people come to them.”

Todd’s imagination immediately paints him an image of a regally poised old hag with too much make-up on, expensive clothes and a superior attitude – the type he had to deal with way too often while working at the Perriman Grand, and his already low spirits dwindle even further. “Where? I can drive,” he offers, to make up for his lack of enthusiasm.

“Belize,” replies Dirk. “But don’t worry, you won’t have to drive that far. She’s paying for our plane tickets. We are to take the nearest flight, tomorrow night.”

“Belize?” parrots dumbfounded Todd. “Belize as in… the country Belize?”

“It’s where I sent Lydia,” Farah explains. “She told her to contact us. Better start packing, Todd,” she adds with a smirk.

 

Dirk catches himself packing all of his stuff. It’s a force of habit; he is still not used to the thought of settling down, of having a home. He catches himself thinking of his old home as Todd comes in knocking.

“Hey. Sorry to bother you, but Farah asked me to check if you have something proper to wear, like a suit or… something…” he trails of as his gaze settles on Dirk, dressed in a bright red bomber jacket, a black pullover like from a school uniform, a clean white shirt and dirty faded pink jeans, and he rolls his eyes to heaven and back. _God, if you’re out there, grant this man some fashion sense_.

“Also, you do have a passport, right?” he asks.

“Well, of course I do,” Dirk replies. “I’m from England, remember? How do you think I got here?”

“With you, I’d believe anything,” Todd mutters. “Hey, show it to me.”

“Why?”

“Because everyone looks stupid on their passport photos? Come on, show me,” he nags, and Dirk reluctantly complies. He bursts out laughing at the small picture of younger Dirk with a wide-eyed stare and longer, frizzy hair.

“Wait, why does it say… Cjelli?” Todd asks, frowning. “Your name is Gently. I mean, that’s what it says on the door. It is _your_ passport, yes?”

“Yes, it’s… Nevermind that.”

“Although,” Dirk says after a pause, “it is a bit of a funny story, actually…”

_Todd sits on the edge of the bed, listening. The story is convoluted and improbable, much like the future ahead of them._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ...Aaand this is it. So.  
>  Thanks to everyone who gave me their attention, validation, kudos, super nice comments, and the unholy amount of patience that I demanded from you. I hope you enjoyed it - I certainly had fun. "Fun" is a word which here means a unique combination of soaring inspiration and incessant internal (and sometimes external) screaming.  
> And, of course, a big thanks to Nee, my beta-assis-friend, without whose invaluable support this would have never seen the light of day, or the light of the big sin orb that shines over this place, or whatever. Thanks for hugging and/or kicking me in the ass when I needed it.  
> Now, I totally feel like never writing again, which, rest assured, is a feeble lie I tell myself, I'm just so exhausted, but I'll definitely see you again. In a while. Let's leave it at that.  
> Cheers!

**Author's Note:**

> Okay folks, this is the first time I post something on Ao3 (damn, I rarely even *read* fanfiction), so if at any point I screw something up with the tags or formatting, and my lovely beta-assistant misses it, please let me know. See ya next week (;
> 
> Btw the chapter titles are lines of Auden's poem "Musee des Beaux Arts", because I love it and I'm a pretentious piece of trash like that.


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